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Banksy and his friends at Colossal Media have put up two new billboards-- one at the corner of Houston and Macdougal, the other on Canal and West Broadway. The one on Houston seems to indicate an upcoming show-- in one of the -ber months. So if you missed his blowout in LA a couple of years back, where he brought in a live elephant and painted it, and then sold a load of stuff to Brad Pitt, you may be in luck.
Update 1: We've gotten a few pix of the painting in progress. Here's one from David Steele Overholt of two of the guys working on it around 6pm tonight. He thinks the one in the hood is Banksy, but he doesn't look much like the photos of the artist we've seen floating around the internet. And really, if you were the ultra-secretive Banksy, would you be standing there watching the piece go up?
Update 2: Banksy himself has just rung in, updating his website with some information about his New York work (see here).
If you click the "now open in NYC" sticker, it takes you to a website called The Village Petstore and Charcoal Grill (see here).
If you click around it's got some information about a new Banksy popup store at "89 Seventh Avenue South (Between West 4th and Bleeker). Open 10am - 12pm daily until October 31st (also viewable at night)." (Our advice: get on line early!) It also has a bunch of weird and disturbing videos featuring animals. Here they are (also after the jump):
Update: Banksy's team passed on this quote to us, regarding the billboards: "I wanted to play the corporations at their own game, at the same scale and in the same locations. The advantage of billboard companies is that they’ll let you write anything for money, even if what you write is questioning the ethics of letting someone write anything because they have money."
We've spoken to Wooster Collective, who's already gotten in for a peek at the store-- they'll have a video up tonight.
Update: here's the video Wooster took. According to them--
This is the first time Banksy has used animatronics, and the effect is absolutely amazing.A clear departure form last year's behemoth show in Los Angeles, Banksy's first ever show in New York City (all the others have been fakes) is being held in a tiny storefront that's less than 300 square feet and can't hold more than 20 people at any one time.
One of our favorite things about what Banksy has done is that the entire show is completely visible to the public both day and night through the store front windows. And unless you're a hard core Banksy fan, or until someone like us tells you, it's absolutely impossible to know that the work has been done by Banksy. There are no paintings or graffiti in the entire space.
Update: Mikeion has some great shots outside the store. Tag your videos and pictures "gothamist" and we'll add them to this post.
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hahahaha the rat cutting the rope! love it!
i'm sensing a theme here.....
He's cool, I like his work.
I just like bombers more.
:D
the videos are great! I guess I'd be going tomorrow to see what's up...
it would be a supreme work of art if banksy could take all the subway rats in new york back with him to the uk since he loves them so much. otherwise, this new promo blows- an artist needing assistants to do tagging-
Argh! Way too much space on the page for this!
Nice ad for this mediocre artist.
I have real rats which get little green nuggets
to eat routinely,that gives them Leukimia so that
they die.It's better than being stuck in a glue box.
They come from in from all the destruction
of low rise buildings for hi rise
buildings.
They have to run someplace,I imagine.
I guess they didn't know they were so
artful.
And that 'artist's statement' couldn't be more naive in that eighties Appropriation Art way. We've been there before and no, he can't engage at the scale and level of the major corporations. But thanks for playing, Banksy.
I know next to nothing about Banksy, but seeing his billboards and reading his artist's statement, I would guess he's a 15-year-old suburban kid. Wait! Wikipedia says he's almost as old as me and a Londoner! Well, my apologies then. He must be quite the artistic force.
awesomeness...oness as NYC rat, very appropriate.
As a graphic artist I have to say, dude is good.
By the tone of the article, including the important breaking updates, and the release from Banksy's "team", you'd think the space shuttle was being launched or a third world war was impending.
Is there actually some news here?
Honestly, this is the type of Story I read Gothamist for. If it was for the other stuff yetanother I'd just read the times or something.
Deff going to go check this out, it's not what I was expecting but Banksy still does some cool stuff.
the site says it's open from 10am to 12am, not 12pm.
Some of you are really bothered by how much love people have for banksy's work. You guys need to look at some of his other work in order to get a good idea of how witty and creative he really is.
Also the community board in bristol actually decided to leave up some of his "vandalism" because the people in that city appreciate and value his artwork. I mention that out of spite because i know some of the people that post here would be furious to know that Banksy is considered a legitimate artist, even when the pieces he puts up are illegal.
@ QM
Reasonable and rational opinions have no place in a Gothamist post, since the majority of users have to hate on EVERYTHING.
QM does he usually sell stuff himself or is it dealers that get a hold of his stuff the ones that sell it for crazy amounts? Just curious.