Art, message, mystery, activism. Banksy, beauty challenges power – Corriere.it

banksy was born in Bristol in 1974, rather not in Yate in 1973.

With Banksy it works like this: the only objectively true facts are his works; as for his life it is difficult to distinguish the epistemological truth from the mythological one. Much shared knowledge touches legend rather than truth, but basically it will be in the nuances of this border that we will try to decode the life and works of an artist who has chosen to consist rather than to exist.

In the decade 2000-2010 the practices of Street Art, emerged in the early 1980s (graffiti and post-graffiti), are making a comeback but in a new direction, influenced by a critical vision of the urban ecosystem, of the global economic model and of the inequalities it generates.

The end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century are the cornerstone of Banksy’s identity maturation. An era in which heterogeneous countercultures emerge that criticize the neoliberal system, reacting with ideas and actions with homogeneous ethical goals. The year historians consider the beginning of a movement around these issues in 2000 in Seattle, on the occasion of the ministerial conference of the WTO (World Trade Organization), the World Trade Organization. Shouting another possible world, the movement first met in Porto Alegre (Brazil) for the World Social Forum, as opposed to the World Economic Forum held in Davos; then in Genoa on the occasion of the G8 in 2001, where the idea of ​​change suffered a ferocious repression, leaving the body of Carlo Giuliani on the ground of illusions; until September 2001 the twin towers collapse in New York and the world suffers the first global tragedy of the new millennium. The instances of the movement are proposed as a critique of multinationals, the exploitation of child labor, the aiding of wars, the domination of banking systems, copyright, social control, environmental sustainability. Each of these instances, work after work, has been transformed by Banksy into an artistic and cultural operation.

In those days, young artists were active in western cities who made themselves known for the ways of their protest. They create interventions with simple and direct forms, taking advantage of the walls that can be conquered in the cities. The inhabitants, who already know the vandal aesthetics of writing, discover a renewed visual production resembling traditional art and advertising codes. These are messages with an understandable language, of rapid impact, elaborated with an inclusive and sensorial aesthetic. The artists sign their works with pseudonyms such as Banksy, Vhils, Space Invader, Obey, Blu, Sten Lex… They are in contact with each other through the newborn social networks (Photolog, Myspace), they come indifferently from writing, illustration, digital graphics, studies academics or by combinations of these languages. They usually live in large western cities, are almost always white and represent the electric children of the middle class.

The transition from quick interventions on urban walls to more complex ones on large buildings is only a matter of time. Around 2010, the diffusion of social networks accelerated the popularity of the images that the artists themselves shared. These are photographs that document paintings on perimeter walls, building facades, bins, mailboxes, abandoned houses and anything else that can be covered in the city environment. Between 2010 and 2014 Street Art involves millions of users on social networks, reaping a consensus with numbers from pop music. In 2012 Street Art festivals explode all over Europe. A generational fact that has now become a phenomenon.

A new typology of artist is growing, a perfect fusion between the urban archaeologist, the militant antagonist and the visionary who metabolises quotations. The urban artist becomes a visual columnist who responds to the contradictions of power with a retrofuturist and inclusive aesthetic, made of beauty and wearability, grace and irony. The paintings appear out of nowhere in the morning, are photographed and then shared. All very different from the canonical system of contemporary art, we could say the opposite in terms of approach and result. This new genealogy of artists has its archetypal ideal in the Florentine Mannerism of the late sixteenth century. After the Renaissance apogee, let’s remember, artists narrate a crisis and they do so by replacing the principle of invention, typical of pure innovation, with that of quotation, typical of the avant-garde that faces the fracture, the precognition of a postmodern condition, as Jean-Franois Lyotard would say. Artists draw from history to repair the present through the past. With a postmodern approach, Street Art unfolds an imaginary of quotation, reconverted memory and post-production. The artists recover and update painting, manual skills, drawing, technique and, therefore, a specific identity of the artist as a total homo faber, nurturing a romantic but militant vision that differs from traditional artistic experiences.

This book tells the life and works of the undisputed protagonist of a new paradigm of creation. An exemplary outsider, the only one who, operating outside the official system, has conquered the top command, skipping the supply chain of the so-called Artworld, presenting his work no longer to curators, critics or museum directors, but directly to the public , putting back the work at the center of social discourse. Banksy argues that art is not like other cultures because its success is not determined by its audience. People fill concert halls and cinemas every day, we read novels by the millions and buy records by the billions. We people influence the production and quality of most of our culture, but not our art.

Banksy is one of the very few living artists who blends importance and meaning together, using his media power to launch morally significant messages. Here are the words of the artist to help us Jeff Koons: There is a difference between importance and meaning. Something that is repeatedly proposed by the media can be important, we are aware of it thanks to the repetition. But meaning belongs to a higher realm.

On newsstands from 6 May – The beginnings of a global and elusive genius

From Saturday 6 May on newsstands with Corriere della Sera the first volume of the series Banksy, a trilogy curated by Stefano Antonelli and Gianluca Marziani (the introduction above) which tells the story of the artist through his works from his origins to today, including his latest works in Ukraine. The volumes are large format and will each remain on newsstands for a month, at the price of €12.90 plus the cost of the newspaper.
dedicated right to the beginning this first volume that starts from the Bristol years, to then address the language of a global and elusive artist who loves puns, double and triple meanings, pronunciations that change the meaning, who recognizes the power of a wall — one of the worst things you can hit someone with — that decided to go from graffiti to stencil while hiding from the cops, and that has one goal: To reach the public with all sorts of images and in all sorts of places. Famous phrases, the works and their genesis, excellent collaborations: in this first volume there are all the first steps of the Banksy legend told by Stefano Antonelli (1966), curator, founder and artistic director of 999 Foundation, and by Gianluca Marziani (1970 ), who manages the Poetronicart platform, curator and creator of contemporary art exhibitions. Antonelli and Marziani are also directors of the Sam – Street Art Museum in Narni (Terni), open from Monday 1 May in the Rocca Albornoz: a public cultural centre, the only museum in Italy dedicated to Street Art, which houses the first permanent collection of original works by Banksy (over thirty pieces). The next releases will be on Saturday 3 June and Saturday 1 July