Banksy fuckage.

[Typowriter]

I've just noticed on Bristol Indymedia that the Banksy on Stokes Croft has been trashed.
Has anyone seen it yet?
The people behind it have posted this link:
http://www.appropriatemedia.net/

Opinions?

EDIT: I've just noticed that the website is hosted by The Cube cinema. Interesting.
EDIT 2 The Cube are hosts for the website ONLY and have no connection to what happened.
 

[JONETHICS]

I wouldnt mind if they'd just fucked it up, fair's fair, but to spout all that shit on their website about gentrification blah blah blah, actually makes me want to go and kill them. burn the fucking hippies!

[powercut]

The thing we hate most about graffiti is that its done by the slow and the self obsessed, all thinking that they have something BIG to say

Isn't this exactly what they are doing by vandalising a Banksy piece?

[Ray Pennybody]

Great big massive bunch of wankers. What they're saying about banksy does ring true, but the way they're saying it and the way they make themselves appear through that site just makes them another cock-spongey layer of the victoria sandwich of arse-fisted wankery that is "urban art".

[cherry]

sound like a shower of bastards.

[Typowriter]

another cock-spongey layer of the victoria sandwich of arse-fisted wankery that is "urban art".

That's a very good sentence for a Monday morning. 9/10
 

[benji oner]

Or are you making parallels between the struggle of black people with centuries of racism and the struggle of poor little middle class white boys with the need to deface private property?


WELL? ARE YOU???
 

[Pippin-Drill]

Hijack midnight clean-up anyone?

[Porg]

I don't understand their point. 

Is it just because Banksy doesn't represent what he used to represent?

Anyway, I'm sure you could retouch it up without having to get him back in especially.

[#]

lulz 

[benji oner]

having just re read it,there actually on the premise that people who paint give a rats about trying to make a grand statement,so have decide to make a grander statement ..
by dashing whitewash across somebodys piece....i feel you.....i understood....no,,yeah..you wont ask permission..ok....you WILL reatliate..ok...

graffiti (in big ass letter form)is around 45 years old..how long have you got?
and as for the gentrification issue..how come graf gets the shite for bringing an area down,THEN gets the shite for bringing it up??..

[Stigg [OSF]]

First the memorial in St. Werburghs was destroyed to make way for flats and now this? Admittedly Banksy has sold out and doesn't have much respect from me anymore, but he is still part of Bristol's history and The Mild Mild West has a place in my heart. I am saddened by this act of vandalism.

[Whagwan]

and as for the gentrification issue..how come graf gets the shite for bringing an area down,THEN gets the shite for bringing it up??..

lolz

[Ray Pennybody]

First the memorial in St. Werburghs was destroyed to make way for flats and now this? Admittedly Banksy has sold out and doesn't have much respect from me anymore, but he is still part of Bristol's history and The Mild Mild West has a place in my heart. I am saddened by this act of vandalism.

True say. But if we're happy for banksy to climb up there and paint without permission then we gotta extend the same courtesy to anyone who wants to paint over it. Can't really have one rule for one and one rule for another. 

[Sherlock Ohms]

First the memorial in St. Werburghs was destroyed to make way for flats and now this? Admittedly Banksy has sold out and doesn't have much respect from me anymore, but he is still part of Bristol's history and The Mild Mild West has a place in my heart. I am saddened by this act of vandalism.

[Stigg [OSF]]

First the memorial in St. Werburghs was destroyed to make way for flats and now this? Admittedly Banksy has sold out and doesn't have much respect from me anymore, but he is still part of Bristol's history and The Mild Mild West has a place in my heart. I am saddened by this act of vandalism.

True say. But if we're happy for banksy to climb up there and paint without permission then we gotta extend the same courtesy to anyone who wants to paint over it. Can't really have one rule for one and one rule for another. 

I guess, but it became part of Bristol unlike all the tags you see everywhere, and now what these guys have done. This is just mindless trash

[benji oner]

First the memorial in St. Werburghs was destroyed to make way for flats and now this? Admittedly Banksy has sold out and doesn't have much respect from me anymore, but he is still part of Bristol's history and The Mild Mild West has a place in my heart. I am saddened by this act of vandalism.

True say. But if we're happy for banksy to climb up there and paint without permission then we gotta extend the same courtesy to anyone who wants to paint over it. Can't really have one rule for one and one rule for another. 

it was a commission i believe..paid for by the shop..a local business possibly responsible for the gentrification of the area

[Codlife]

what a bunch of twats.

[Typowriter]

and as for the gentrification issue..how come graf gets the shite for bringing an area down,THEN gets the shite for bringing it up??..

I can't remember graffiti being held responsible for an areas decline. It used to be a very visual symptom of an area that is in decline (or already fucked), but I can't think of an instance in which it's taken all the blame.
I hear what you're saying though.
 

As we've all seen on these forums before, people have very wide views on Banksy's work ranging from adoration to all out hate. But it's interesting that graffiti has been elevated to its current status for various reasons and is seen as something to preserve instead of the temporary art form which it previously was.
A backlash was inevitable and the fact that piece got done was too.

[Greg HighPressure]

the peeps that sit infront of it have been increasing in numbers recently and decreasing in communal iq

[nevermind]

First the memorial in St. Werburghs was destroyed to make way for flats and now this? Admittedly Banksy has sold out and doesn't have much respect from me anymore, but he is still part of Bristol's history and The Mild Mild West has a place in my heart. I am saddened by this act of vandalism.

True say. But if we're happy for banksy to climb up there and paint without permission then we gotta extend the same courtesy to anyone who wants to paint over it. Can't really have one rule for one and one rule for another. 

That's fine but dashing red paint over it is just stoopid. Whether you like Banksy or not you should be thinking: does it look better now or how it did before?

[benji oner]

and as for the gentrification issue..how come graf gets the shite for bringing an area down,THEN gets the shite for bringing it up??..

I can't remember graffiti being held responsible for an areas decline. It used to be a very visual symptom of an area that is in decline (or already fucked), but I can't think of an instance in which it's taken all the blame.
I hear what you're saying though.
 

As we've all seen on these forums before, people have very wide views on Banksy's work ranging from adoration to all out hate. But it's interesting that graffiti has been elevated to its current status for various reasons and is seen as something to preserve instead of the temporary art form which it previously was.
A backlash was inevitable and the fact that piece got done was too.

and as for the gentrification issue..how come graf gets the shite for bringing an area down,THEN gets the shite for bringing it up??..

I can't remember graffiti being held responsible for an areas decline. It used to be a very visual symptom of an area that is in decline (or already fucked), but I can't think of an instance in which it's taken all the blame.
I hear what you're saying though.
 

As we've all seen on these forums before, people have very wide views on Banksy's work ranging from adoration to all out hate. But it's interesting that graffiti has been elevated to its current status for various reasons and is seen as something to preserve instead of the temporary art form which it previously was.
A backlash was inevitable and the fact that piece got done was too.

graffitis one of the "quality of life" crimes that the media and other gimps trot out at the appropriate time,ive seen countless newspaper headings where people say there scared to leave the house because of a few tags down the road..dont get me wrong it isnt all pretty or right,but its not THAT big a deal as crime goes..its up there with knock down ginger..

[The Lady Nonny Wrongford]

cock-spongey layer of the victoria sandwich of arse-fisted wankery that is "urban art".

 

[Sherlock Ohms]

That's fine but dashing red paint over it is just stoopid. Whether you like Banksy or not you should be thinking: does it look better now or how it did before?

Yup. Some people seem to idolise Banksy, and to be fair to him he's done well out of what he's done, but his work rarely says anything, looks nice, raises a wry smile, but there are other who do similar stuff equally well.

However chucking a couple of cans of red paint over a well known piece and claiming that you're preventing graf artists "Pushing out low income families in their wake, to be replaced by middle class metrosexuals with their urban art collections." makes the people who did this sound like a bunch of cocks. 

It's a bit like the London Banksy piece that was gone over with tags by another artist who was, conveniently enough, opening a new show at a gallery a couple of days later - way to get media coverage.

[apathesis]

Dickheads. I like that piece 

[username]

My mate did a few interviews on the radio etc on behalf of Banksy, he died recently. I thought this piece (and others) would always be there to keep his spirit burning strong, these guys are totally out of order, what something means to them is only their interpretation, what a disgustingly blinkered view they are peddling, im personally going to fuck them up, i will find a way  

[jack]

These people are fucking idiots.

They've spent time and money painting over something they regard as an expensive waste of time, just so they can scream about how their political message is not being served by someone else. There isn't an constructive iota about it. At least Banksy was original.

[benji oner]

My mate did a few interviews on the radio etc on behalf of Banksy, he died recently. I thought this piece (and others) would always be there to keep his spirit burning strong, these guys are totally out of order, what something means to them is only their interpretation, what a disgustingly blinkered view they are peddling, im personally going to fuck them up, i will find a way  

link for the interview?

[Galvanize!]

They bash on about getting a 'proper job' - what does that even mean anyway? Surely everyone has to put food in their kids mouths and pay the rent, what's more honourable about doing that by working in an office destroying your soul selling insurance or whatever than finding you have a talent for something and the public is willing to pay you well for it? Anyone who says they wouldn't cash in on it is a fucking hypocrite imo.

I know what I'd rather look at in the morning when I go to my 'proper job' and it's definitely not red paint splashed childishly across someone else's piece. They could have created something really thought-provoking next to it, but these kind of playground tactics will just instantly get people's backs up.  I reckon if they channelled some of that passion and anger into direct action towards something that actually mattered, we'd all be laughing.

[Sherlock Ohms]

I'd suggest that people voice their concerns to

appropriate.media101@gmail.com

seems to be a contact adress for 'em

[ollspin]

wow these appropriate media guys seem really angry and bitter.  what a sad way to live life.  i feel sorry for them.

[username]

My mate did a few interviews on the radio etc on behalf of Banksy, he died recently. I thought this piece (and others) would always be there to keep his spirit burning strong, these guys are totally out of order, what something means to them is only their interpretation, what a disgustingly blinkered view they are peddling, im personally going to fuck them up, i will find a way  

link for the interview?

radio 4, bbc website  

[PaulBassRock]

end of the day, that was a nice piece whatever the artist stood or stands for, it fitted in well with the area, and now it looks a mess

[a511ley]

the PRSC are on the case with a cleanup crew already 

[Pinny]

The more you email them, the more they are getting what they want. Attention for their pathetic "movement"

This made me chuckle:

In collusion with property developers, they paint deprived areas bright colours to indicate the latest funky inner city area ripe for regeneration. Pushing out low income families in their wake, to be replaced by middle class metrosexuals with their urban art collections.

As if graffiti artists are in cahoots with property developers, tagging up areas to indicate they are ready to be "gentrified"... These idiots are on a different fucking planet, get your heads out of your asses Appropriate Media. Your statememnt is invalid. No one actually cares as much as you do about Banksy and wanky urban art.

[B'Tol]

wow these appropriate media guys seem really angry and bitter.  what a sad way to live life.  i feel sorry for them.

Private school does that to you.

[Square One]

These people are fucking idiots.

They've spent time and money painting over something they regard as an expensive waste of time, just so they can scream about how their political message is not being served by someone else. There isn't an constructive iota about it. At least Banksy was original.

Their very own explanation of what they're about just happens to be an "appropriated pseudo-socialist dumb-arse dogma"

Many of those words came from Charlie Brooker three years ago:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/sep/22/arts.visualarts

 

[nevermind]

The past seven days have really galvanised my negative opinion regarding hippies, crusties, anarchists, anti-capitalists and all the rest. Too many idiots willing to fuck with things without proposing better alternatives.

[Rexus]

Fucking waste. Whatever point these people are trying to make is going to be lost on the majority of people who just enjoyed the Banksy piece as a clever piece of art. If these vandals ever read into the history of the piece it wasn't done to raise the price of buildings in the area it was actually the previous owner of the building who innocently thought it was good spot for some art and commissioned banksy in about 98/99.

What are these dickheads point anyway??!! Are they trying to stop graffiti artist painting in deprived areas so they can continue to just look shit??!!! I think like most pseudo-revolutionists they have no point!!!!

[miss baggy]

The past seven days have really galvanised my negative opinion regarding hippies, crusties, anarchists, anti-capitalists and all the rest. Too many idiots willing to fuck with things without proposing better alternatives.

  Well said!

[basserize]

They bash on about getting a 'proper job' - what does that even mean anyway? Surely everyone has to put food in their kids mouths and pay the rent, what's more honourable about doing that by working in an office destroying your soul selling insurance or whatever than finding you have a talent for something and the public is willing to pay you well for it? Anyone who says they wouldn't cash in on it is a fucking hypocrite imo.

I know what I'd rather look at in the morning when I go to my 'proper job' and it's definitely not red paint splashed childishly across someone else's piece. They could have created something really thought-provoking next to it, but these kind of playground tactics will just instantly get people's backs up.  I reckon if they channelled some of that passion and anger into direct action towards something that actually mattered, we'd all be laughing.

         

WHAT TWATS!!!!!!!!!  

Whatever anyone says Banksy is good for Bristol. That piece was good for Stokes Croft. PRSC have really brought some life into a run down area. My dad's a taxi driver and actually takes people on graff tours around the area, with people wanting to see the Banksy's.

Im going to email the cunts:
Way to go dick heads wanting to keep an area scummy by trashing everyone elses attempts to enliven it!!! Graffiti and street art is not 'gentification' just becuase its popular. I would class gentification as all the shops being bought up and boarded with clean grey hordings, then sold off to starbucks and tesco stores. THAT would be gentification by selling out the area's soul and squeezing out small and independant businesses in a half arsed attempt to clean it up!!! What artists are doing is reclaiming visual space and expressing a voice in a creative and inspiring way. The artwork around Stokes Croft has seriously improved the area; its much more welcoming, shows there is life there and passionate people that care about the place in which they live. Whether you like it or not at least someone is trying to do something positive to improve the area. Vandalising a valuable piece of artwork that belongs to the city is fucking out of order, and makes you look like jealous pratts.

[Sherlock Ohms]

The past seven days have really galvanised my negative opinion regarding hippies, crusties, anarchists, anti-capitalists and all the rest. Too many idiots willing to fuck with things without proposing better alternatives.

Got into a heated debate on exactly this sort of thing recently ...

and

These people are fucking idiots.

They've spent time and money painting over something they regard as an expensive waste of time, just so they can scream about how their political message is not being served by someone else. There isn't an constructive iota about it. At least Banksy was original.

Their very own explanation of what they're about just happens to be an "appropriated pseudo-socialist dumb-arse dogma"

Many of those words came from Charlie Brooker three years ago:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/sep/22/arts.visualarts

 

Reading the fact that they've lifted most of their 'manifesto' from Brooker makes them an even bigger sack of ass-munching wankers than I originally thought they were

[ronnie]

These people are fucking idiots.

They've spent time and money painting over something they regard as an expensive waste of time, just so they can scream about how their political message is not being served by someone else. There isn't an constructive iota about it. At least Banksy was original.

Their very own explanation of what they're about just happens to be an "appropriated pseudo-socialist dumb-arse dogma"

Many of those words came from Charlie Brooker three years ago:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/sep/22/arts.visualarts

 

It's fucking verbatim! These cunts of the highest order can't even come up with their own justification for what they're doing! 

[benji oner]

They bash on about getting a 'proper job' - what does that even mean anyway? Surely everyone has to put food in their kids mouths and pay the rent, what's more honourable about doing that by working in an office destroying your soul selling insurance or whatever than finding you have a talent for something and the public is willing to pay you well for it? Anyone who says they wouldn't cash in on it is a fucking hypocrite imo.

I know what I'd rather look at in the morning when I go to my 'proper job' and it's definitely not red paint splashed childishly across someone else's piece. They could have created something really thought-provoking next to it, but these kind of playground tactics will just instantly get people's backs up.  I reckon if they channelled some of that passion and anger into direct action towards something that actually mattered, we'd all be laughing.

         

WHAT TWATS!!!!!!!!!  

Whatever anyone says Banksy is good for Bristol. That piece was good for Stokes Croft. PRSC have really brought some life into a run down area. My dad's a taxi driver and actually takes people on graff tours around the area, with people wanting to see the Banksy's.

Im going to email the cunts:
Way to go dick heads wanting to keep an area scummy by trashing everyone elses attempts to enliven it!!! Graffiti and street art is not 'gentification' just becuase its popular. I would class gentification as all the shops being bought up and boarded with clean grey hordings, then sold off to starbucks and tesco stores. THAT would be gentification by selling out the area's soul and squeezing out small and independant businesses in a half arsed attempt to clean it up!!! What artists are doing is reclaiming visual space and expressing a voice in a creative and inspiring way. The artwork around Stokes Croft has seriously improved the area; its much more welcoming, shows there is life there and passionate people that care about the place in which they live. Whether you like it or not at least someone is trying to do something positive to improve the area. Vandalising a valuable piece of artwork that belongs to the city is fucking out of order, and makes you look like jealous pratts.

dont forget to add that the piece was commisiond by the  local independant buisness that it was on the side of

[powercut]

EDIT: I've just noticed that the website is hosted by The Cube cinema. Interesting.

How did you find that out?
A whois says the domain is registered to

Clean Collective
Po Box 2695
Bristol, Avon BS6 9BJ
GB

According to the first google result:

"The Clean Collective – a disparate, desperately random collection of artists (who met studying MA Fine Art at UWE, Bristol) "

[Pinny]

Reading the fact that they've lifted most of their 'manifesto' from Brooker makes them an even bigger sack of ass-munching wankers than I originally thought they were

From their site:

In the early hours of this morning, Banksy's 'Mild Mild West' on Stokes Croft in Bristol (UK) was repainted by a member of Appropriate Media, presenting an alternative version of this 'alternative Bristol landmark'.

Through this action, Appropriate Media asks ?What is the value of street art??. How much time and money will be spent to restore this urban 'masterpiss' by urban masterpisser, Banksy.

Come on, you only care about it cos its a Banksy and he sells his lazy polemics to Hollywood movie stars for big bucks.

Come on, you only care about it cos makes you feel edgy and urban to tour round the inner city in your 4x4, taking in the tired coffee table subversion that graffiti has become.

Graffiti artists are the copywriters for the capitalist created phenomenon of urban art.
Graffiti artists are the performing spray-can monkeys for gentrification.
We call for the appropriate and legitimate use of public and private property.

An alternative version? No it's just the one before, which was good, with some red paint thrown at it

And I care because I see it every day

[Square One]

These people are fucking idiots.

They've spent time and money painting over something they regard as an expensive waste of time, just so they can scream about how their political message is not being served by someone else. There isn't an constructive iota about it. At least Banksy was original.

Their very own explanation of what they're about just happens to be an "appropriated pseudo-socialist dumb-arse dogma"

Many of those words came from Charlie Brooker three years ago:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/sep/22/arts.visualarts

 

It's fucking verbatim! These cunts of the highest order can't even come up with their own justification for what they're doing! 

Pretty embarrassing, isn't it?

They could have at least name-checked him...

Fools.

[The Lady Nonny Wrongford]

Appropriate Media oppose the over-interpretation of public space by city planners, council regeneration officers, community artists,
graffiti artists and other such unrelenting fundamentalists.

Seriously, what the fuck are these people on?!

[Typowriter]

EDIT: I've just noticed that the website is hosted by The Cube cinema. Interesting.

How did you find that out?
A whois says the domain is registered to

Clean Collective
Po Box 2695
Bristol, Avon BS6 9BJ
GB

According to the first google result:

"The Clean Collective – a disparate, desperately random collection of artists (who met studying MA Fine Art at UWE, Bristol) "

Hover over any of the links on the page and the target page = sparror. Cubecinema.com etc.

[basserize]

EDIT: I've just noticed that the website is hosted by The Cube cinema. Interesting.

How did you find that out?
A whois says the domain is registered to

Clean Collective
Po Box 2695
Bristol, Avon BS6 9BJ
GB

According to the first google result:

"The Clean Collective – a disparate, desperately random collection of artists (who met studying MA Fine Art at UWE, Bristol) "

When you google Clean Collective it comes up with a flikr account for two 27 year old Bristol based artsists SARAH COCKINGS and ALICE HODGE... both part of art-el!!!