Banksy - My Idea of Art

Art is a funny thing, it's just so hard to pin down and for a mathematician I find that quite difficult. However, if i stop bothering for a second about concrete definitions (God forbid), it becomes easy. Art is just something I can appreciate, maybe its elegance or beauty, maybe it can elicit an interesting symphony of feelings or perhaps even it tells me something profound. For me, the Mona Lisa doesn't cut it, connoisseurs of fine art may think me uncultured or juvenile but it doesn't elicit any of those responses. Something I would consider elegant and beautiful is maths, its predictability reminds me of a wind up toy, doing the same things over and over with a constant unchanging look on it's face. Like a dance of variables going on to infinity. Another example, Nineteen Eighty Four elicited an unparalleled symphony of feelings in my mind. The love story painted in childish but vivid colours against the dull world, with its faint odour of cabbage, is truly beautiful. As a love story on its own it was actually quite shallow, but like a candle in a dark room, it shone brightly.

I like a bit of street art, although not the rushed scribbles on railway bridges. I like the witty, jolly good side of graffiti, where there's talent and intelligence. Maybe it's the dry wit or the clandestine nature that appeals to me, or maybe it's just that it brightens up drab buildings. For me Banksy is sticking two fingers up to a depressed, efficiency driven culture that has chosen mediocrity. His choice of canvas is usually to find the most boring or ugly parts of the urban landscape and turn them into meaning. Adding beauty to the mundane is both a admirable and noble profession. Furthermore, his work courts controversy. Obviously this doesn't make the actual work better but it does provide a good comedy sound track. Ruthless art dealers grab at his work, grown men fight over it and rich people want it for their bedrooms. In all the rush, they appear to have forgotten the idea of it all, they are the exact people that Banksy is poking fun at. The horrible irony of paying half a million for what is essentially a picture of yourself, with the word "dick" printed underneath, actually makes for a funny mental image.