NOLA Street Art (&BANKSY)
In the world of international street art, the man behind the name Banksy is considered the genre’s king— king, or at least a member of its royal family. This popular British artist is renowned for his politically contentious and clever art found all over the world. On the website of user-created intellectual graffiti— wikipedia— Banksy is cited as a leader of anti-war, anti-capitalism, anti-fascism, anti-imperialism, anti-authoritarianism movements. He is also credited with propagating anarchistic, nihilistic, and existential movements with his art— all very impressive for a guy whose real identity is unknown.
One of his socially conscious travels brought him to post-Katrina New Orleans, some time in 2008. His trip to the city was part of a larger trend of people coming to transform this site of disaster and reconstruction. Brad Pitt established his “Make It Right” campaign due to his frustration with the slow pace of reconstruction. His “sexy and sultry” ark-like dwellings have popped up all over the levee side of the Lower 9th Ward. Writer, Dave Eggers came to the city to document a family’s hurricane survival story in his book Zeitoun. And in terms of film, New Orleans has garnered a reputation as “the Hollywood of the South,” hosting numerous filming every year.
Even without consulting census information, I know pretty well that the city’s current population is completely different from the one before the storm: we have the hearty stock who could return after Katrina, a young alternative community who filled the void of those who did not come back (students, dropouts, and graduates), and the various types of humanitarian related workers. Current New Orleanians live in a space with a colorful history, regardless of whether or not they were here before the storm. In many cases, the trajectory of these histories changed drastically in 2005. The histories became the stories people tell. Before the storm, New Orleans was perennially the murder capital of the United States. The city is mired in the reputation of crooked cops and even more crooked politics. How the current population of the city lives out the legacy of its history is expressed in new and interesting ways.
New Orleans in this historical moment of rebuilding is undergoing a transformation of street art culture that is both similar and different in the way that music and literature and politics are reacting to the same events. In a series of posts that will follow, I want to explore what it means that Banksy came to the city at all, and what the appearance (and subsequent disappearance) of his art means about the future of the city.
(photos: AnthonyTurducken)
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NOLA Street Art (Part 2)
A series about Street Art in New Orleans would be incomplete without mention of Rex Dingler and the NoLA Rising campaign to bring about social change through public art. In Dingler’s own words, “NoLA Rising is a non-profit art campaign that promotes accessibility to art regardless of socio-economic status and aims to broaden perspective and opinion on public art.”
As reporter Ben Lewis makes clear in his 2010 investigative documentary, The Great Contemporary Art Bubble, the tragedy of contemporary art is that none of it will ever grace the living spaces of ordinary people because it is too freaking expensive. In order to truly make art available to the people of New Orleans, Rex Dingler hosts painting parties for local artists at which all the art is given away. They also post their art in outdoor places, tacking them to walls and telephone poles for people to stumble upon and take home. The name of this citywide artistic dispersal is, “It’s Yours, Take It”.
Rex Dingler is the other end of the spectrum of street art from that of Banksy, although their artistic goals are same. They create art for the public space. The shock factor viewers experience when unexpectedly coming upon their wall mounted artwork is part of the common mystique. The publicity they receive is of the same kind, but their modes of operation are of opposite sorts. Dingler just came out with a book, The Dinglerization of America, and Banksy just came out with a movie, Exit Through The Gift Shop; Dingler is a public figure while Banksy is a wraith.
The mystery of Banksy’s night prowling subversive art making is of the same stock as the superhero tradition. Because of this larger-than-life aura, Banksy’s art weilds a magical punch. But artists like Dingler who represent the artistic social activity of a community are invaluable in realms that transcend street art. Dingler and artists of his same mind are civic heros. A city with the spiked history of New Orleans benefits from both kinds.
Sam Lovett 