The Culture Jamming of Banksy: A Research Project
One of my favorite artists of all time is that of the contemporary graffiti artist, political activist, and vandal Banksy. The most interesting thing about Banksy is that no one, except for a few close friends, knows the true identity of Banksy. The only undisputed fact about his or her identity is that the artist hailed from Easton, Bristol. Banksy is known for the distinctive use of stenciling he or she employs when creating a piece. Most sources, especially the underground artist group DryBreadz Crew, state that Banksy began as a free hand artist but soon switched to stencils to complete the pieces because it took up less time, therefore, decreasing the risk of being caught by authorities. His first large piece entitled “The Mild Mild West” was completed in 1997 covering up a former solicitors advertisement in Bristol.
Banksy has completed numerous pieces the world over, held exhibitions, as well as even producing the film Exit through the Giftshop, which discusses it’s work as well as Thierry Guetta, a French immigrant in Los Angeles who because of an obsession with street art began documenting Banksy’s process and eventually began a career as a street artist himself named Mr. Brainwash, yet rather than having true talent he instead sought to exploit the art industry and art collecting market to sell his brand. Banksy looks to illustrate that notion within the film’s narrative as well as call attention to his own experience within the corruption of the Art world, with many of his pieces being removed and sold for profit without a cent being paid to the artist.
Banksy is well known for his satirical and subversive pieces that use dark humor to address contemporary issues. Culture jamming is a word that one would not normally associate with Banksy’s pieces across the globe, but one can see especially with a keen eye that it is indeed a proper term to be used for his work, even if it is a tad disconnected from the standard usage of the term and the art pieces that the term usually describes
This piece depicts Ronald Mc Donald and Mickey Mouse, two of the most internationally known symbols of American capitalism and consumerism holding hands with the primary subject of the photograph “Napalm Girl” aka “The Terror of War” taken by Nick Ut.
The piece seemingly calls attention to the fact that not only the companies whose mascots are depicted but in fact many American companies outsource labor to third world countries, primarily in Southeast Asian, and take advantage of the people living there. They exploit the absence of child labor laws as well as wage, health, and safety standards in order to facilitate a larger profit margin. The use of such an image, a wartime one, seems to allude to the use of child labor as well as near slave labor as a warlike conquest, American imperialism encroachment upon the Third World being compared to a military invasion of sorts. To another extent, we can infer that Banksy may be attempting to depict a “what if scenario”, is that it looks like they are parading down the street, it depicts almost in a mirroring effect what if these companies were truly honest with their consumers, yet at the same time maybe the mascots are more like authorities, a common theme in Banksy’s art, escorting her to or away from a factory. What do you think?
In this piece, Banksy is poking fun at the consumerism of the motion picture industry. But to another degree, it is poking fun at the consumerism of violence. We watch violent movies and television shows, listen to violent music, and play violent video games. The desire for violence in pop culture has become much too saturated and thus there must be an answer to it, thus Banksy takes one of the most iconic images of contemporary movie violence, Jules and Vincent from Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, and makes it absurd by putting bananas in their hands instead of guns. Is it a coincidence that Banksy chose such phallic symbols? Yet the title seems to depict a pessimistic attitude towards the desire violence in pop culture, alluding to image as fiction and though this will get a few laughs it will do nothing to stop it.
This piece depicts a downtrodden shoeshiner shining the comically large and bright red clown shoes of Ronald McDonald as he casts a stern and threatening look down at the shoeshiner. This was probably the most direct instance of culture jamming created by Banksy because this statue moved places every day for one week, visiting a different McDonald’s restaurant at lunchtime in New York throughout the week. Banksy is obviously being quite critical of the corporate workplace but to another extent, since the shoeshiner is not a McDonald’s employee it could be directed at the consumer's being fed unhealthy food and lining the pockets of “Ronald Mc Donald”
A few final pieces in regards to Banky’s use of culture jamming we have this primary example that dumbfounded and made fools of the art auction world where a painting of his piece “Girl With A Baloon” self-shredded itself after it was sold at auction. This showed that Banksy jammed an auction selling his art with his own art by engineering the frame to contain a shredder which then shredded the piece before everyone's eyes. Questions abounded as to how he engineered this feat and was the present when it occurred in the auction room. Yet to some extent it may have backfired on him because a stunt like this conducted by this artist almost certainly increased the value.
The last few are links to a few other projects Banksy did, the first being his 2015 project that collaborated with other artists, Dismal Land: A Bemusement Park. The other is his couch gag for the television show The Simpsons. The pieces speak for themselves. All in all culture jamming may not be a word associated regularly with Banksy but his affinity for doing such cannot be denied. It may just have to be looked at a little closer. He defies expectations at every instance.
