Mood:
mischieviousTopic: culture
The Sydney Morning Herald ran this story recently, which was quite amusing and fitting for the Sydney Festival season:
Details emerge of Banksy's Sydney visit - Arts - Entertainment ...
SMH caption: Famous pair … the painting in Melbourne, left, and Enmore Road.
Naturally we went to check it out in person: And the story gets more interesting again since that went to print on January 17th 08.
Yesterday we saw what Stevie Bee, the information officer of Alfalfa House Food Co-op, notes was an unfortunate example of Marrickville Council workers dilligence in removing tag graffiti also scrubbing the now famous Banksy 'child-pearl diver helmet' figure. As you can see it's starting to fade, and the tag artists are still going at it too:
But we ought not be too harsh on the less than avante guard loving street cleaners. As will be seen there is other proud Australian stencilling that is preserved nearby, but further back from the main street. Are the council workers making a nationalistic point? Everyone's a critic?
Organiser at the great and good Alfalfa had more: The owner they rent from has agreed tentatively to a mural on that side of the building. The wall opposite has been painted over and avoided tag vandalism for a while now. He also amusingly suggested it raises the question whether Banksy is better than the local stuff and who gets to decide?
We took that with a grain of salt until we happened onto nearby stencils of variable merit with the apparent blessing of another wall owner, and see below too the intriguing concrete (!) remote control, making another obscure point about modern existence. Art with kicka*se social comment is far from washed up in Enmore:
