The morning of Sunday, October 12th found me on the subway heading south from Penn Station toward the NYC subway system’s Christopher Street/Sheridan Square Station. Stories in the media claimed that Banksy had come to Manhattan. I was determined to track down signs of the passage of this anonymous graffiti artist.
His spoor wasn’t difficult to find although somewhat different from the usual graffiti murals the artist leaves behind in his passage. The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill, located at 89 Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village, a short walk from Sheridan Square, is an installation piece. Apparently Banksy acquired the store front for the short lived (through October 31st) display.
Two saw horses stood outside ready to provide crowd control on a quiet Sunday with maybe two dozen visitors. In one store front window display a bunny wearing a pearl necklace sat attentively in front of a dressing table and mirror, filing her nails, while several chicken nuggets with feet pecked away at a take-out container of BBQ sauce. Nearby a leopard or ocelot cub balanced on a tree limb, its thick tale dangling.
Stepping inside I was confronted with an animatronic monkey in a cage, its eyes moving and mouth pursing quite realistically, watching a television screen displaying a Discovery Channel show about monkeys. Fish fillets swam in endless circles in a nearby fishbowl, while hot dogs and other assorted sausages crawled about in glass sided cages.
Perhaps most interesting was a wall display of sale merchandise, including canned meats and packages of sliced luncheon meats, including one of my favorites, olive loaf.
What was Banksy up to? The artist explains in The New York Times:
“I wanted to make art that questioned our relationship with animals and the ethics and sustainability of factory farming,” Banksy said in a statement distributed by a publicist, “but it ended up as chicken nuggets singing.”
No, there were no singing nuggets, just a display that felt more like a high school project, receiving a C+ at best. Neither street art nor graffiti, Banksy’s pet shop fell far short of the impact made by his British works. Or is it just me?
I suddenly realized I had never witnessed any of the artist’s work first hand, always before viewing it through the lens of the media with its hype and commentary. Is Banksy an artist who cannot exist outside of the media hype? Whose work has no instrinsic value beyond that granted by fad and fashion? Food for thought, whether olive loaf or chicken nugget.
Related MadSilence posts:
Banksy Cleans Up
Related links:
Where Fish Sticks Swim Free and Chicken Nuggets Self-Dip
Banksy Unveils Singing Chicken Nuggets at New York “Pet Supply Shop”
Banksy Rats Now In NYC!
~MadSilence
5 Comments
October 15, 2008 at 4:55 am
I can’t really answer your question regarding merit outside the media hype, time will tell. Perhaps using the media is part of this artists means to get a message across. I do think that his exhibit (even if it fell short of expectations-and not without reason I suspect) has generated what he set out to do with it.
October 15, 2008 at 9:22 pm
I was thinking how sometimes art is transformed when it is presented in another media. Such as a photograph of graffiti can look better than the actual graffiti. I wonder if that could be argued with this current banksy exhibit. That it isn’t the actual exhibit that has merit, but the film or photos of it.
What do you think?
October 16, 2008 at 10:09 am
Corrinne you ask some hard questions, questions that an artist would ask, or an art manufacturer. Let me answer as an art consumer. I didn’t travel two hours to 14th Street to struggle with deciphering an enigmatic message wrapped in an unappealing wrapper. I don’t want to struggle to apply the lens of contextualism & the media to decode a mundane message whose only claim to aesthetic appeal is the label “Banksy”. I trust my aesthetic judgement believing that there are instrinsic values to art. Where’s the artistic excellence & moral value of chicken nuggets?
Whew! With that said I left Banksy’s pet shop behind to explore NYC’s Art in Odd Places 2008 (www.artinoddplaces.org) & visit the newly opened Museum of Art & Design at Columbus Circle. What fun! And what a truly amazing exhibition! Fodder for a future post.
MadSilence
October 16, 2008 at 10:50 pm
I think you gave me an honest answer that is definitely food for thought (we are into puns eh lol!), especially as an art consumer. I see your point. I haven’t seen the exhibit in the real so I am not in a position to say much other than I agree there seems to be an element of exploiting the name to bring attention to an issue rather than art per se.
I really enjoyed your link and look forward to your post on it.
October 16, 2008 at 10:52 pm
ps. I particularly liked the mundane objects being painted gold, it really highlighted a beautiful post.