What’s left of this.
A tipster sent us these pics of the latest addition to the ongoing collaborative mural by Public Works started by Banksy during his 2010 promotional surge through the city. This augmentation was allegedly added by none other than French pioneering stencil artist Blek Le Rat.
More pics after the jump.
This week, Mission Mission brings you a recap of the top 5 posts of 2010. Can you guess the number one post of the year?
Hey, I already told you it’s not BART Boner. Is it Details on the American Apparel Hearing (NSFW)? Almost. That was the number one post in terms of traffic. But dude, that is so 2009. American Apparel was already chased out of the Mission by an angry mob who was probably wearing their stuff the whole time. Not that you care, the real reason you looked at that post was the hot pixxx of Sasha Grey when it popped up in Google. That’s ok, we wont tell.
3. San Francisco Has Banksy Fever!
Right before Banksy’s first film “Exit Through the Gift Shop” premiered across the US, all sorts of Banksyesque street art started popping up in all the major cities including NYC, Detroit, and San Francisco. The Mission was hit a couple of times during this promotional surge at Mission and Sycamore (see above) and Valencia between 19th and 20th above Amnesia.
Initially, there was doubt about whether or not the pieces were authentic. Commenters battled it out while other pieces popped up in Chinatown, North Beach, SoMa, and even Alcatraz. Everyone suddenly thought graffiti was just swell. Camera clutching tourists loitered in the middle of Valencia street. Reports came in that he had a private shopping session Self Edge and had stayed in the Mission for 4 days. So apparently Banksy likes Mexican food, gentrification, and really expensive uncomfortable jeans that you’re not supposed to wash for a year.
Inevitably, the works were augmented, defaced, and mocked by other local street artists. Local business owners saw the tourist potential of keeping the pieces pristine and inadvertently got themselves in the art restoration field. This brought up the tired debate as to what constitutes legitimate street art and petty vandalism. Meanwhile, Banksy watched it all go down from his luxury secret lair and LOL’ed.
Banksy’s film is now on Netflix, by the way, and he insists it’s not a prank.
2. Lady Gaga Causing a Scene at Rosamunde
We’ve had our share of celebrity sightings in the Mission this year. To name a few: Glee lady, Molly Ringwald, Margaret Cho, Dave Chappelle, and Steve Jobs.
The one that topped our charts was Lady Gaga’s unexpected appearance at the new Rosamunde location in the Mission. It started as a rumor, but was pretty much confirmed when pictures and first hand accounts came in. She was allegedly in search of an authentic Mission burrito, but got sidetracked when she saw a sign advertising “sausage”. This amused her enough to stop in, confirming that the pop star is, in fact, a 12 year old boy.
L. Gaga ordered white wine and did not actually stuff a sausage in her mouth. She bullshitted with the staff and admired homemade jewelry for over two hours while being reminded by her bodyguards about her dinner reservation at somewhere fancy. The Rosamunde staff urged her to check out El Farolito for that burrito she craved. With that she left. Perhaps to go to El Farolito where, if it’s anything like Flour and Water, she was told wait in line like everyone else.
Previously:
We spotted these multi-colored yarn hearts on the chain link fence at 23rd and Valencia while shilling Sex Pigeon T-Shirts Sunday. In a way, this sensitive street artist has more balls than Banksy, since wrapping all that yarn must have taken at least 25 minutes of hard labor. Spray paint and stencils? 10 minutes. Tops.
There I said it, Banksy. Crochet a giant rat into a chain link fence and maybe I’ll change my mind.
P.S. Does anyone still want those shirts by the way? We can drag them out to that same intersection when the weather’s good. Just don’t look at us like we’re the scum of the earth when you walk by like 90% of the people on Sunday did, ok?
? Almost. That was the number one post in terms of traffic. But […]</p>
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Bold and brazen, she wasn’t fazed in the slightest by my photographic documentation of her criminal act.
Should I have stopped her?
UPDATE: Several of you have requested that I remove “Tubby” from the title, so in the interest of preventing a civil war on the server, I have acquiesced. I’m not saying I agree with the morality police, and I’m probably still a jerk for posting it in the first place. These facts remain despite the update. I must say though that I don’t find it “hateful” (a very strong word) to call someone (who is spraying one of the ugliest tags I’ve ever seen–on my street no less) “tubby” in a photograph where she can’t be identified (back to the camera).
Please continue to discuss in the comments; the ability of our readers to engage in rational discourse is my favorite part of this blog.
Well, they’re really trying with this new Windows Phone. Maroon 5, Fillmore, free tickets, and this hot new street art stencil medium everyone’s been talking about lately. Just clear something up for me real quick: Is it legal to spray paint on sidewalks?
If Banksy or random taggers are doing it, they usually get away with it too unless caught in the act since they don’t leave any identifiable details. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure Microsoft is still located somewhere in Washington. SFDPW, you know where to send the clean-up bill.
[Photo courtesy of the illustrious Broke-Ass Stuart]
Just in case you’re like me and Banksy Fever™ still wasn’t enough for you to get out and see Exit Through the Gift Shop, it’s playing at the Roxie through Thursday. Showtimes are at 8:30pm.
The owners of the building at Erie and Mission that got Banksy’d back during the artist’s spree through the city in promotion of his movie were very excited about having a famous piece of art on their property. Now, it seems as though they are taking it a step further, as reader Milu explains:
I heard they were going to do a mural around this Banksy piece, well, it looks like Chor Boogie has christened the beginning of it.
Now, I’m not exactly sure what he might have in store for the rest of this piece, but that obese robin is a fantastic start. Poignant commentary about the inequal economics of art? At the very least, way better than getting Kaiser Soze’d. Curious to see how this all turns out! I wonder if the context will be preserved, which you can see in the before shot captured by Travis LoDolce below:
(Thanks for the pic, Milu!)
Previously:
“And like that, poof, he’s gone.” I am inclined to think that Otter was not in fact behind it this time. It’s a good thing that everybody and their brother already photographed this to death, because now it’s really dead. Alas, no one had the foresight to put up a sign in Cantonese warning that this art is “very hard to get it.”
Anyone know the story behind this Banksy whitewashing? Any of the other Bansky pieces throughout the city suffer a similar fate?
UPDATE!!! An anonymous commenter seems to have the scoop:
The building owner lives in Texas and received a notice from the city. Not knowing the significance of the piece, or what it was, he had it painted over. The owners of The Curiosity Shoppe live in the building and were obviously unable to convince him to keep it.
Yikes! However, this is the kind of thing that happens when you have an out of state absentee property owner who doesn’t seem to know or care about the culture of the area in which his property resides.
Also, I was able to get a free Chinese language lesson out of this too. Apparently, Cantonese and Mandarin refer only to spoken language, whereas written language is always known vaguely as Chinese. So, even though most of the residents of Chinatown happen to be Cantonese speakers, that sign was nonetheless written in Chinese. Case closed!
Previously:
Another alleged Banksy in the Mission seems to have been defaced, but this time was also re-faced as notable protester of nothing in particular Frank Chu. I definitely prefer this to some relatively unknown graffiti artist attaching his own stuff onto Banksy pieces in order to garner free publicity, but it could all just be another Laughing Squid prank.
[Photo by catiemagee, via Laughing Squid]
Previously:
San Francisco Has Banksy Fever!
Allan Hough (7858)
Brittany Janis & Katie Cruz (104)
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