Monday, 2 April 2007

Banksy Rats, Banksy Rats, Thames Boulevard, Albert Embankment, London

Ahhh the ubiquitous Banksy. The modern day Robin Hood. The urban Da Vinci. The one tone stencil outlaw. No blog is complete without a Banksy.

"In London you're never more than 20 feet away from somebody telling you you're never more than 20 feet way from a rat"

Banksy is a well-known pseudo-anonymous British graffiti artist. He is believed to be a native of Yate, South Gloucestershire, near Bristol and to have been born in 1974,but there is substantial public uncertainty about his identity and personal and biographical details.His artworks are often-satirical pieces of art on topics such as politics, culture, and ethics. His street art, which combines graffiti writing with a distinctive stencilling technique, is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris and members of the anarcho-punk band Crass who maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Tube System in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His art has appeared in cities around the world. Banksy's work was born out of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians.

Decided to catch the tube from Westminster this morning so I walked along the river and took this pic of Banksy 's cannon rats and flying scuba guys. There is actually another one without the scuba guys a little further along signed by Banksy. I've noticed that his art is disappearing from London so I thought I'd capture the moment for prosperity. Also started geo tagging the pics in the "pic a day" project so if you are interested you can find the location in London. This pic was taken across the river from the Houses of Parliment and Big Ben as seen in the background.

- A small number of Banksy's works can be seen in the movie Children of Men, including a stenciled image of two policemen kissing and another stencil of a child looking down a shop.
- In the 2007 film Shoot 'Em Up starring Clive Owen, Banksy's tag can be seen on a dumpster in the film's credits.

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