Street Art and Graffiti are apart of all city life and having the opportunity to expand on some very famous pieces throughout the city of London was a magical experience. Banksy has been one of my favorite artists for a few years now and to get to see a few of his pieces or even a few spots he once had pieces was incredible. And I even got to find another new favorite artist in Bambi along the way. I also learned so much about street art, tagging and graffiti in general as it pertains to London. It was awesome to look at the juxtaposition of street art and the architecture it uses as a canvas. The new buildings and the old one each held an importance to the message the art had and emphasized the city life outside of what a regular tourist could ever imagine. It was also interesting to see the difference in areas the art was located in as well, from really wealthy and known areas to some unique markets. Each area gave a different purpose to the art and created one of a kind environments for it to be showcased. It was definitely a crazy way to experience art, but I found that I got to know the city of London a lot better by experiencing this.
Ally I totally agree with you how architecture itself acts as a canvass for graffiti. And with architecture itself being art that should bring character to a community, it’s interesting to contrast that with graffiti which itself reflects the community, such as Bambi’s work of Diana as Mary Poppins. With that being said, graffiti does indeed give different purpose to areas as you said, and to go even further, the street art itself should act as a main focal point in my opinion rather than an auxiliary purpose due to the potential power it wields to bring and spread new ideas and messages to a community.
I find it really interesting that you discuss Banksy as one of your favorite artists. In general, I have always enjoyed graffiti art and how tagging is an exclusively urban approach to art, and I would like to know more about what you think about its preservation. I see that you have learned about Bambi and become more interested in street art. Do you like the idea of people trying to preserve famous pieces by Banksy in museums? Or do you find that other people profiting from his art (and possibly ignoring his messages) is pointless? Also how do you feel about the possibility of other artists tagging over Banksy’s work, in the sense that priority should not be placed on his artwork because of his fame?
I also loved the street art tour. Before the tour, I was fairly unfamiliar with Banksy and other street artists, though now I feel like I have more of an understanding of what their work typically stands for. I really like how Banksy’s work is often some sort of social commentary and how the location of his work adds to the meaning and value of his work. One of the other parts of the tour that I really enjoyed was how finding the pieces was sort of a scavenger hunt. Even if you know the general location of a Banksy piece, you still need to search around an area (or climb over a wall in our case) to find it, which adds to the excitement of the experience.