A Gentleman's Commonplace

Smash 'n' Add: Banksy hits NY

As a Londoner, I am used to Banksy's stencilled wit on the walls and pavements around where I work.

However, the Wooster Collective have photos of a daring "Smash 'n' Add" raid in which he added situation specific artworks in some of New York's leading museums and galleries. One is shown, right. Genius.

Apparently a couple are still in place, unnoticed by galley staff.

Link: Wooster Collective : Stickers / Posters / Graf / Culture Jamming.

Thanks to We make money not art for the link

'Destorying'

Rogi links to the provoking Goodbye Romania. A series of photographs accompanied by spare text present brief vignettes of post-Ceaucescu life. 'It's a story about Romania,' explains the introduction, 'that is to say it is a story about change.'

The twist that makes the site compelling is that each time a photo is viewed, a pixel is removed, thus slowly eroding the image: 'by visiting this site you will destroy it' it declares. Once (I estimate) 90,000 visits have been registered, it is gone.

So simple a device suggests several lines of enquiry including the role of consumption in destroying a way of life, how retelling a story enevitably changes and obscures the 'original'. In effect we could call the process 'destorying'.

It reminds me of Douglas Adams' and Mark Carwardine's Last chance to see – see it before it is too late, but don't forget that you are directly implicated in its demise. It is nothing less than a story about sustainability.

Keeping a stiff upper lip

You've probably heard about the Momart fire that has destroyed many important pieces of largely modern British art. I was most shocked that more than fifty Patrick Herons were destroyed - a great, great loss.

Still, I couldn't help but smile at the response from Chris Ofili, quoted in the Guardian:

Important works by Chris Ofili, who won the Turner in 1998, have gone, some of them part of the personal collection of Victoria and Warren Miro. Among them is the first work in his Captain Shit sequence, a parody of 1970s blaxploitation cartoons.

Yesterday, Ofili, on bullish form despite the loss, said: "The super hero Captain Shit has in-built protection against the flames of Babylon. He will return – the saga continues."