Banksy New Orleans: Then and Now
It’s been nearly a year since the U.K.-based street artist and provocateur known as Banksy completed over a dozen public art pieces in various locations around New Orleans, including the Faubourg Marigny, Mid-City, Tremé, and the Lower 9th Ward.
The appearance of the pieces coincided with the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and many of the images commented directly or obliquely on issues like government (non-)reponse to the crisis, racial and class divisions in the city of New Orleans, and the persistent efforts of local anti-graffiti vigilante Fred Radtke, aka the “Grey Ghost.”
While the approach of Hurricane Gustav over Labor Day weekend and subsequent evacuation of the city prolonged the lifespan of several of these works for a few extra days, by the middle of September 2008, most of them had been painted over by parties not sympathetic to Banksy’s singular worldview. In one case, a Banksy image was physically sawed off the front of the shotgun house upon which it was painted. (Banksy’s pieces sometimes fetch considerable sums on the secondary market, although the artist has stated that any piece thus removed from its original context and sold without his consent is no longer “an original Banksy.”)
Of the Banksys that do remain in their original locations, some are protected from further damage or obliteration by clear plexiglass that has been attached over their surfaces. And still others have been preserved by the same kind of benign neglect that has preserved so many artifacts from the past here.
In all cases, though, the pieces serve as visual metaphors for the continuing transformation of New Orleans in the years following Hurricane Katrina. Like the storm itself, Banksy’s work has become a potent point of reference in the visual landscape of the city.
See more:
Banksy Does New Orleans (Flickr)
Banksy (banksy.co.uk)
5 Responses to “Banksy New Orleans: Then and Now”
[...] Banksy: New Orleans then and now. [...]
[...] 我喜欢Banksy在美国新奥尔良为纪念水灾三周年所创作的一系列涂鸦。这些涂鸦讽刺政府在水灾之后的不作为，当地的种族歧视。在荒废的小屋墙外的涂鸦，孤单却很动人。不过，这些涂鸦作品很多都因为缺乏保护，或者因为政府反对而被破坏了。 [...]
Dang. This is the perfect example of being (or not being) able to separate cultural contributions from vandalism. Were those pieces so offensive that they had to be covered?
I loathe tagging and love street art. Creativity should not come at the expense of another (tagging windows etc.) and creative expression on our shared walls is a beautiful thing.
Reply
[...] Sur la difficulté de créer du street art: Banksy à la Nouvelle Orléans un an plus tard… Les photos valent le coup d’oeil. [via C-Monster itou] Pendant ce temps, ses peintures [...]
[...] to give them a dry cleaner, and graffiti is the best way to communicate that? It’s not Banksy or anything, but I kind of like it. Back on the bike and off I went. I love that riding a bike [...]