Banksy appears to be getting the limitations of a formal show out of his system by going back to decorating street walls. First the M40 Bandit appeared a couple of weeks ago and is generally accepted to be Banksy although no “official” confirmation has been made.
Westway bandit, Nolionsinengland
Now, a very nice stencil has surfaced in Croydon and thanks are due to our friend Romanywg for this pic, there’s nothing beats going out on a graff hunt and Mr R spent over two hours and made two trips down to Croydon before finding the right wall.
Flat Pack Anarchist, Romanywg
Stylistically this looks like classic banksy and we’ve seen versions of the anarchist punk before in “Don’t Forget Your Scarf Dear” from the Bristol show.
Banksy vs Bristol Museum, Nolionsinengland
Banksy is noted more than most for his placement and use of the environment, it’s hard to see the full context from the pic here but apparently it is close to the Croydon shop-in-a-barn-on-the-outskirts IKEA. With a nod to someone off a forum for the research, apparently IKEA in Canada jumped on the guerrilla marketing bandwagon and hired an agency to go out and spray un-authorised advertising on walls using, errrrrrrrrrr, “chalk paint”. So Banksy hits two birds with one stone in this piece – convenience weekend anarchists and the appropriation of street cool by mega multi-national corporate.
Romanywg
No obvious explanation for the “IEAK” spelling, Graffoto certainly doesn’t subscribe to the theory that Banksy is afraid of breaching trademarks. I’d like to think Banksy has suffered the living hell that is Ikea’s Returns Desk and this is his jest at how often IKEA stuff is defective.
Some Assembly Required, Romanywg
Some have said this lacks the sense of “Banksy spectacular” but Banksy is fundamentally a street cartoonist and this is up to his usual standards. If spectacular means CCTV Nation or the Pollard St line painter then give me these illegal (guessing) ones any day.
As an aside, K-Guy also had a pop at the homogenisation and corporatisation of art as flogged by Ikea, described here.
And just in case you hadn’t heard, Banksy did a popular show in Bristol this Summer, the Graffoto review is here and the Graffoto guide, which like everything else in Graffoto is of immense historical importance but actually bugger all use today, is here.