looking for banksy........

Toronto photographers were in a frenzy the early days of last week, looking for the graffiti art purported to have been left in several downtown backstreet locations by the notorious British street artist known as Banksy. His real identity has never been revealed. By him or anyone else, it seems. Doesn't that speak loudly to loyalty? The guy has been on the street-art scene close to 2 decades. He must have family, friends, business associates. No one has ever leaked his identity? He's either well loved or deeply feared *~*  His documentary film "Exit Through the Gift Shop", which premiered at the Sundance Festival in March, opened in Toronto last weekend & it's believed he landed in Toronto for the first time for that occasion. Come Monday morning the buzz was out.... Bansky had been here, leaving his mark on Toronto walls. Somehow the press had been coerced by their source into keeping the exact locations of the seven pieces vague, to deter vandals & taggers (graffiti artists who spray over others' work). The hunt was on. Wednesday, I too was tramping the downtown streets, in the pouring rain, looking for Banksy art. All I got was very wet & surprised at just how much graffiti is out there in downtown Toronto. I inadvertently located the laneway, several blocks long, that runs from Portland to Spadina filled with colourful graffiti from one end to the other. But no Banksy. Back at the computer, I learned that the Torontoist website had revealed all  ....images of what one was looking for, exact locations & their current condition. Graffiti is public art & public access its intended form, they declared, and the vandals & taggers will find it regardless. Only 3 remain, though one of those has been seriously tagged. The others have either been completely painted over, removed or tagged beyond recognition. The biggest surprise was to learn that one of them (above) is only steps from my own front door. It may well be the only one to survive due to the fact that management at Fionn MacCool's bar, on whose backwall it appeared, hired a security guard for 2 nights until a professional was found to seal it over with clear plastic (see below). There is heated debate on various internet sites ...some vehemently call Banksy a phoney, not a true street artist (he uses stencils to create his images), some cry foul at the vandalism & tagging while others argue that that is the very nature of street art....it is meant to be transitory. How did Banksy attain such international notoriety? Intrigue always helps.....the secret identity he maintains, the enigmatic overnight appearances of his pieces in various cities around the world. He must do it in the middle of the night. Does he take a cohort with him to keep a look-out for the inevitable wandering night-owls? In a National Post article on Banksy's art, photographer Tong Lam calls it "a cultural phenomenon......a critique of capitalism (that) has itself become a commodity" Indeed, his pieces now sell for tens of thousands of dollars. In 2008 a collection of his works on canvas went for the equivalent of over half a million dollars, by British auction. What a to-do! The debates rage, the vandals deface, the photographers hunt & click & Banksy, clever fellow, has invaluable free publicity for his newly released film , over 100 pages of google links & is surely laughing all the way to the bank.

The watchers watch a banksy wall. (west side of Church, just north of The Esplanade.) The Torontoist intimates that the Banksy tag, in childlike scrawl, which the watchers appear to be watching, is in fact the artist's mark. Fact or interpretation on their part, who knows? Doesn't matter. Whoever put it there knew the exact position that would serve best. Kind of like finding the precise spot for the football in what was probably one of the earliest capitalistic dream factories hoisted on gullible contemporary society, a cultural phenomenon now obsessive & addictive to a frightening global degree ....the lottery! Littlewoods' Football Pools. Get bulls-eye on the football's position in the stop-play photograph & you too can be a millionaire ! 

 Usually satirical in nature, Banksy's message is often anti-establishment, anti-capitalist, anti-war. What is Bansky alluding to here? That the sheep-like mentality of our society has us gaping at a scrap of concrete wall, as directed by the artist, rather than marching to our own drummer ? Kris Kristofferson had something to say on that subject some time back, when his career was at its prime. " Imagine alien life looking down on us... what must they think seeing one person getting paid thousands of dollars to do what they'd rather be doing than anything else on earth & thousands of other people paying a lot of money to watch them do it. " That's my momentary take on it anyway. Like all art, it's open to subjective interpretation. Men in business attire / bankers / the global banking fiascos? A simple statement on societies' response to graffiti? Does Banksy make simple statements? I doubt it *~* He began as a freehand graffiti artist, part of the industrial city of Bristol's underground movement of the early 90's.  He switched to the stencilling technique in 2000 because, as he himself has said, it's easier & faster therefore better suited to surreptitious execution. This is the piece (above) that is around the corner from my place. And to me the most intriguing of the 3 I've seen. I'm happy to have it so accessible, available to muse on when the mood takes. Also, I'm curious as to whether it will last or will someone determined enough figure out how to vandalize it, pry the protection off, find the right tool to slice through the plastic, mar the material like a keyed car. I'll keep you posted. It is, in fact, high quality plastic, it doesn 't hinder clear viewing of the work, though optimum viewing & photography can only be obtained at certain times of the day as it's fiercely vulnerable to reflections depending on the sun's position.

Banksy's rat is alive & well & living on Spadina Ave, just north of Queen. And wearing sunglasses. In disguise? Rats are a common motif in Banksy's work. As are monkeys, policemen, soldiers, children & the elderly. The location of this particular rat is the heart of Chinatown, the immediate area where restaurants were closed down by the city health department in 2009.... for unacceptable preparation standards & rat, mice & cockroach infestation. Do you suppose Banksy knew that?

On the back of the old Provincial Police Headquarters, on Lakeshore between Bay & York. Only the policeman & leashed balloon dog is Banksy original The dodo bird on head & the writing is tagged. The "thanks" balloon no doubt left by an admirer.

A uniformed armed police officer holds the leash of a pink balloon dog, the kind handed out by clowns to amuse children, a balloon dog that needs to be muzzled. Banksy's mockery of law enforcement, even as he vandalizes their own bastion? The possibilities are endless. Thanks, Banksy. Your visit has left much food for thought!

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bad boy........

Standing at the curb on Queen's Quay. At the foot of Yonge street.  Was debating whether to take yet another shot of the iconic CN tower which was beckoning to me from across the street, its grand position between 2 high-tech highrise buildings, periwinkle blue sky as backdrop, making a startling demand for attention. Nah !!!.Turned around. Oh!!!! He was this close, sitting on a parked motorcycle , leaning on the handlebars. All I saw was the tattoos & the hand rising to the mouth. Lifted my camera. Click. Reflex action. No thought. Uh oh! Knew instantly that I'd just clicked my way into candid street photography's potential trouble zone. He was mad. His back straightened. His face changed. The  easy countenance of an uneventful but pleasant Sunday afternoon hanging out with his biker buddy, gone. The eyes narrowed as the hand ripped the cigarette out of the mouth, freeing it for verbal attack. "Who gave you permission to take my photo?" "Sorry! Sorry! Didn't get your face. Just the tattoos & the cig" "You did NOT have permission to take my photo" he virtually spat. I clutched my camera tightly & started to back away. Was he going to tell me to delete it ? Demand that I do it right there & then & show him the proof ? Was that in fact his right? But the frame I'd seen in the viewfinder in that split second of spontaneous shutter clicking had excited me, crammed as it was with the hand to mouth cigarette action, the dense blue-inked snake-like tattoos & the barbed chain he'd chosen to indelibly & to his dying day strangle himself with.  Only got that one shot. No way. He's not getting it. Backing away further, staring down his glowering eye contact, I make my escape. With my shot intact. Downloading when I got home...aha.....audentes fortuna iuvat!

The bad boy! All women know them. Many are attracted to them. The ones with "trouble" stamped on their foreheads. The ones who take you for a ride on their motor-cycle. The ones who take you for a ride.  Sean Penn? Jack Nicholson? Robert Downey, jnr?  James Dean, oozing both  rebellion & vulnerability....the quintessential bad boy ? They came into my life. I let them in.  First boyfriend at 15. Brooding & charismatic. Was smitten the moment he strutted into the youth club for the first time. ( Do kids today still have such a social life or is 'the mall' their club ?)  He was 14. Was in my life, on & off,  til I was 18, til I sailed away to a new life in Canada. Saying goodbye on deck of the transatllantic Cunard liner that would take me there in 6 days & 6 nights, he said "I'm not worried ....you'll be back in 6 months." Cocky as ever. As irresistible as ever. But I wasn't back in 6 months. And I never saw him again. Age 23, I married one. The classic Prince of Darkness / King of Light. A lot more than just 'trouble' stamped on his forehead. Talk about roller-coaster. What is it about the bad boy that both fascinates & terrifies women? Attracts & repels. Not the tattoos. The bad boy can reign supreme without a jot of ink on his body. Inevitably, charisma  is an ingredient. And barely disguised vulnerability..... brazen self-confidence...... gall.  A wild quality. Perhaps therein lies the power. Deep down we want to be wild like that too. We're hoping some of it will rub off on us. That we'll get to bury the good girl. For awhile anyway.

The guy on the motor cycle......his charisma evaporated the moment he opened his mouth. A pretty fierce response. Less aggression might have made me less determined to keep the shot. He did have a point worth consideration. Though street photography is not against the law. He chews his fingernails. Anxiety-ridden? Insecure? Or is this particular bad boy a fuse ready to blow? That's no fun! Damnright dangerous, in fact!

shut the f..ck up!!

Don't you want to throttle them? Go right over & stick a knife in their backs? Doesn't matter what public space you're in, the street, restaurant, a bus, the subway, top of the cn tower, waiting for the movie to start, standing in line for the john, even the reverent public library where shhhh! silence! has been the rule of thumb for time in memorian....... there they are with their bloody cellphones stuck to their ear, talking in loud voices about their mundane little lives. What is that anyway? Can't be alone with their own thoughts for a single second lest they might have to face the reality that they don't have a thought worth musing on? A desperate need to prove to everyone within earshot , including themselves, that they're not the depressed friendless isolated urban dweller we might dare to assume they are? Cellphones..... and their users! An obnoxious in-your-face blight on contemporary society's day to day living! A total loss of consideration for everyone else's right to a reasonable measure of unintruded upon existence. A profound lack of common courtesy that is enough to make this ranter tear her hair out by the roots & ram it down the offender's throat til they are rendered speechless! Aaah, silence at last! This abuse of common air space is not even limited to lone souls reaching out to someone, anyone, for companionship, to conduct business on the go, to verify that it was milk they were supposed to pick up on the way home & not a bottle of poison to put an end to their measly sad lives. No, they can be seen all dressed up at lunch on a patio or dinner on the town, in groups of 3 or 4 or more, not even remotely socializing with each other, each & every one of them with a cellphone clamped to the ear talking to someone elsewhere. Yesterday I was riding the Red Rocket out to the west end of the city. No sooner had I sat down than the person behind me started talking loudly to some invisible contact at the other end of a cellphone. The opening lines of her end of the conversation? "Whatssup? Watcha doin'?" Doesn't even have anything of any value to say!! And on & on it went. I can feel the irritation stirring its juices in my gut but, hey, it's January 5th, not a good way to start a new year so I move, collect all my already removed wintergear, hat, scarf, gloves & take a seat at the back of the streetcar where I can no longer hear her loud tedious smalltalk. The return journey several hours later.....had just settled down, taken out & started reading Chris Hedges' excellent "Empire of Illusion" when the young woman across the aisle from me starts up on her cellphone..... very loudly, like she's giving a performance and demanding that every other rider on the streetcar be her audience, whether they like it or not. Her hostage would be a more appropriate word. Her topic of relentless conversation? A 'he said, she said' gossip reportage of the previous evening apparently. Concentration to read is impossible. Am I going to move again? No, I am not! Am I going to stay silent & irritated? No, I am not! "Miss, talk with a quieter voice!!!!" spoken quite loudly.... but no response, my voice has not penetrated the banality of her idle chatter. "HEY!!!" She glances over to me with a surprised 'who me?' look on her face. " Talk with a quieter voice" "Oh, sorry!" she says and continues talking on her cell at a more reasonable level. A few passengers cheer, in relief I suspect. But is she sorry? Has she thought about what prompted a demand for consideration on a crowded public vehicle? Hopefully... but probably not. She was still talking when I exited the streetcar. I, on the otherhand, have taken my first but not my last step of rebellion against this constant onslaught of vocal invasion. Be warned Toronto. I am about to become recognizable as the woman who's not going to take it anymore. Get out of my face with your damn cellphone. Get a life. A real life in the here & now! Try a little silence! Shut the f..ck up!!