I think that's exactly why it's a great documentary. I adore Banksy's work and kick myself every day for missing out on the stuff he sold in NY during that stay in NY. I live in CT, a short ride away. Anyway, it's sad but fascinating to see how other people perceive his work, even if it's completely negative and disrespectful.
I MET a Traveler from an antique land,
Who said, "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings."
Look on my works ye Mighty, and despair!
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that Colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley
Everything we make is ephemeral, nothing will last. It will be transformed by man or by nature. Either in its meaning or its form. And, ultimately, it will fall to the elements.
EDIT: I recently learned that there's a second poem, this one by Horace Smith. The two wrote their poems as a competition.
IN Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desart knows:—
"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
"The wonders of my hand."— The City's gone,—
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.
We wonder,—and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.
An odd thread for Hacker News, critiques of capitalism, poetry and reflection upon the ephemeral nature of things and - more shocking yet - references to La Planete Sauvage.
I found it rather peculiar that someone started spray-painting over one of his freshly painted works and was wrestled to the ground because of it. [1]
If Banksy's work is meant to raise the question of who in our society gets to determine what images invade everybody's retinas in public spaces [2], those bystanders provided an answer: whoever is hip enough to get people to defend their images. At that point the artwork was complete.
