Banksy does L.A.

If New York had its Fashion Week, this must have been L.A.'s art weekend with tons of openings. Shepard Fairey showed at Merry Karnowsky and Neck Face was at New Image, and I'll check those out when they're not so crowded. I did attend Ai's opening, though, beause Ai, Shingo, and Gabe are awesome and so is the art.

And then I made time to check out Banksy's show at a warehouse in Downtown L.A. If you were one or two people of the people here who didn't go (or maybe you were out of town), here's the scoop.



No, I didn't go on the all-star preview night on Thursday with celebrities and rock stars. A group of friends and I went on Saturday afternoon, just after the show opened. We parked a couple blocks away. It was like the show was a magnet pulling in art fans from around the city to this industrial neighborhood.



It got super crowded later on, but we just walked up the ramp and in. People with bags got searched for stickers and Sharpies.



The first thing you saw was a paddy wagon with the mysterious UK artist's trademark stencils. You know an artist has made it big when he can put stencils on items that refer back to his art. This police truck had Bobbies making out on the back panel.



There was a looped video which put the anonymous artist's work in context. It's one thing to show art in a warehouse to hipsters; another to shove it in the faces of people who need it. Clips showed Banksy putting up his art in museum settings and on the street, as well as placing his figures in Disneyland. Also documented was his purchasing, doctoring, and returning Paris Hilton CDs to shops. A sample booklet was placed under glass with live cockroaches.



Around the corner was a more traditional gallery space. There were large canvases juxtaposing classic art images with twists. For example, a wall-sized image of a picnicing family surrounded by starving Africans.



And then statues with modifications--busts with bulletholes in their foreheads, baseball caps and fundraising folders, etc.



From a loading dock, you could see a mangled phonebooth--something touched on in the film loop. He took ones off the street, cut and welded them, and then replaced them. A statement on an era gone by...



Around the corner, I could see the trailer that held the infamous elephant which had been featured in the day's Los Angeles Times. Its presence elicited complaints from animal rights activists regarding creature which was body-painted to blend with wallpaper. It was intended as a statement about obvious problems being ignored by society. Uncool to animals? Maybe. Unsafe? Probably. Effective? Definitely.



Back inside the main room was a corner fashioned to look like a fancy parlor with stuffed couches and modified thrift-shop paintings. Once again, he took a paintings theme and turned it upside-down--for example, portraits with gas masks or a lake scene tilted and draining off the frame. Each piece was seamlessly doctored.



This entire show seemed intent on proving that Banksy is much more than a stencil street artist, and that his artistic skills, social criticism, and sense of humor have many dimensions. I think it worked, and the sense sense of planning and craftsmanship was further illustrated in sketches and plans



And just like that--the three day show was over and gone. But look for Banksy stencils around town, because you know they're out there.