HAS Banksy "sold out?" Or did he, as all of us inevitably do, evolve? While being a starving artist may be noble, it also sucks. Financial success is hardly a bad thing, but does it render an artist less "relevant?" Does he/she lose their voice once they become famous/wealthy?
Some artists sell out- Jeff Koons is the most disgusting example that leaps immediately to mind. I think Banksy at least still has a sense of the place of his art in the world. As you said, he's now married, middle-aged, and has moved on to a new stage in life. It happens to all of us if we're fortunate to live long enough. The key is what you do with that. Koons blatantly sold out. Banksy? I don't think you can say that about him.
Good art is subversive. It pisses people off, or at the very least makes people think. It makes "the authorities" react and demonstrate their cluelessness. I think that ultimately will be Banksy's legacy. As much as I hate graffiti, there are a few artists out there whose work deserves a wider audience. Without Banksy, I think many doors would still be shut.
Banksy's been fortunate enough to reach a place where no matter what he does, he makes bank. To some that brings his credibility into question, to others it increases his credibility. Damned if you do, damned it you don't. I suppose the key is to not give a damn.
Some 40+ years ago, on one of my visits to Westwood (the tony neighborhood that UCLA calls home) there was an artist doing a chalk "painting" on the sidewalk. It was stunningly beautiful, poignantly so, given its obviously transitory nature. 25 -- 30 years ago when I was living in Chicago, the city basically gave a stretch of wall around a cemetery under the Red Line elevated over to street artists. They created this lovely mural that ran for upwards of 50 yards. It took a very long time for it to be degraded by standard issue tagging by the local gangs; it was treated as more or less off limits.
Just thinking of some of the street art I've personally encountered, not including some of the musicians who were busking on the corner.
The question that comes to my mind reads something like this: After the first million, what does the person do with their newly acquired fame and wealth? Does that money just go to their newly established off-shore tax shelter, or do they turn around and start giving back to the community? It becomes a question of "virtue", though perhaps the Greek αρετή (ar-eh-Tay) might be better here, so as to avoid the connotations of the English word.
For the Greeks, αρετή was about "living well," εὐδαιμονία ("eudaimonia"), a word which, inexplicably, is often translated as "happiness." What utter twaddle; eudaimonia literally means "healthy spirit." To live with αρετή was to have a healthy spirit, and that meant living in balance with your world. Such balance, as Aristotle went to great lengths to argue, was context dependent; it was a "mean" between two vicious (from the word "vice") extremes of excess and deficiency. Such a virtuous mean is different for a poor person as compared to a wealthy one. Poor people should be generous, neither miserly nor extravagant with their limited resources.
But wealthy people, to be virtuous, must be "Magnificent" (Aristotle's term.) They must do things on a truly grand scale that gives back to their community which has, after all, made their wealth possible in the first place.
Which brings me back to Banksy: what is he doing with his wealth? Is he establishing a community outreach system for artists in the ghetto? A school that serves the under represented? Or just a bigger house, with a bigger pool, and a bigger garage sheltering a faster car? Answer those questions, and you'll answer whether or not he's a sellout.
(By the bye, both Nobel laureate economists Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz are explicitly Aristotelian in their approaches to economics. Rather than just asking, Has wealth increased?, they ask, Has eudaimonia increased? Are a few people richer, or have the possibilities for the many expanded into greater reaches of living well? So all that Greek philosophy stuff is not just a bunch of addle pated hand waving. It has significant, real world applications.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. We've forgotten that--or, what is likely more accurate, we never fully embraced that philosophy in the first place. Like you, I'd be interested to know what Banksy is doing with his money. Is he singlehandedly funding his installations? Is he, as you say, establishing an outreach system for artists in the ghetto? Operating in secrecy must be incredibly liberating. But sometimes people do unconscionable things in the dark.
HAS Banksy "sold out?" Or did he, as all of us inevitably do, evolve? While being a starving artist may be noble, it also sucks. Financial success is hardly a bad thing, but does it render an artist less "relevant?" Does he/she lose their voice once they become famous/wealthy?
Some artists sell out- Jeff Koons is the most disgusting example that leaps immediately to mind. I think Banksy at least still has a sense of the place of his art in the world. As you said, he's now married, middle-aged, and has moved on to a new stage in life. It happens to all of us if we're fortunate to live long enough. The key is what you do with that. Koons blatantly sold out. Banksy? I don't think you can say that about him.
Good art is subversive. It pisses people off, or at the very least makes people think. It makes "the authorities" react and demonstrate their cluelessness. I think that ultimately will be Banksy's legacy. As much as I hate graffiti, there are a few artists out there whose work deserves a wider audience. Without Banksy, I think many doors would still be shut.
Banksy's been fortunate enough to reach a place where no matter what he does, he makes bank. To some that brings his credibility into question, to others it increases his credibility. Damned if you do, damned it you don't. I suppose the key is to not give a damn.
LOL! That's exactly the key to all of it: to not give a damn. But it makes for some interesting mental rabbit holes, doesn't it?
Some 40+ years ago, on one of my visits to Westwood (the tony neighborhood that UCLA calls home) there was an artist doing a chalk "painting" on the sidewalk. It was stunningly beautiful, poignantly so, given its obviously transitory nature. 25 -- 30 years ago when I was living in Chicago, the city basically gave a stretch of wall around a cemetery under the Red Line elevated over to street artists. They created this lovely mural that ran for upwards of 50 yards. It took a very long time for it to be degraded by standard issue tagging by the local gangs; it was treated as more or less off limits.
Just thinking of some of the street art I've personally encountered, not including some of the musicians who were busking on the corner.
The question that comes to my mind reads something like this: After the first million, what does the person do with their newly acquired fame and wealth? Does that money just go to their newly established off-shore tax shelter, or do they turn around and start giving back to the community? It becomes a question of "virtue", though perhaps the Greek αρετή (ar-eh-Tay) might be better here, so as to avoid the connotations of the English word.
For the Greeks, αρετή was about "living well," εὐδαιμονία ("eudaimonia"), a word which, inexplicably, is often translated as "happiness." What utter twaddle; eudaimonia literally means "healthy spirit." To live with αρετή was to have a healthy spirit, and that meant living in balance with your world. Such balance, as Aristotle went to great lengths to argue, was context dependent; it was a "mean" between two vicious (from the word "vice") extremes of excess and deficiency. Such a virtuous mean is different for a poor person as compared to a wealthy one. Poor people should be generous, neither miserly nor extravagant with their limited resources.
But wealthy people, to be virtuous, must be "Magnificent" (Aristotle's term.) They must do things on a truly grand scale that gives back to their community which has, after all, made their wealth possible in the first place.
Which brings me back to Banksy: what is he doing with his wealth? Is he establishing a community outreach system for artists in the ghetto? A school that serves the under represented? Or just a bigger house, with a bigger pool, and a bigger garage sheltering a faster car? Answer those questions, and you'll answer whether or not he's a sellout.
(By the bye, both Nobel laureate economists Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz are explicitly Aristotelian in their approaches to economics. Rather than just asking, Has wealth increased?, they ask, Has eudaimonia increased? Are a few people richer, or have the possibilities for the many expanded into greater reaches of living well? So all that Greek philosophy stuff is not just a bunch of addle pated hand waving. It has significant, real world applications.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. We've forgotten that--or, what is likely more accurate, we never fully embraced that philosophy in the first place. Like you, I'd be interested to know what Banksy is doing with his money. Is he singlehandedly funding his installations? Is he, as you say, establishing an outreach system for artists in the ghetto? Operating in secrecy must be incredibly liberating. But sometimes people do unconscionable things in the dark.