Saving Banksy Overview

In this short essay, I am going to present my summary and touch on three main key points from documentary ‘Saving Banksy’ (Boros) relating them to our studies.

Saving Banksy is a documentary movie that has several points of view of street artists and art collectors throughout it. Street artists share their opinions on what is street art for them, what they think about street art being taken from street walls and put into galleries, their thoughts on Banksy and his work, and what they think about saving ‘Haight Street Rat’ (Banksy) art in San Francisco. Main story revolves around Brian Greif who tried to save one of the Banksy’s arts, as there was a law about anti-graffiti and art dealers who were taking the artwork and selling it without Banksy’s permission. Brian had taken it upon himself to save the art piece. After having long conversation with landowner, he was able to take the art piece, together with the part of the wall, and wrapped the pieces putting them in his closet. Brian was searching for an art museum which is free and open to public to give the art piece there. His priority, goal, was to save the art for future generations so that everyone can see this art. He thought that this kind of artwork is part of the history and didn’t want it to be forgotten or ruined. Brian was not able to find a proper gallery and he arranged a tour for it. Allowing the art piece to be put only to those galleries where everyone can see it for free.

One of the key points that I saw in movie was about Banksy and his signature.  We have talked about signature in class, and in the movie, I speculated that Banksy has a certain signature a style. People are able to identify it because of its style, the written word ‘Banksy’, and also rats. Banksy has expressed him/herself drawing rats in many street arts. Most of his art works are about peace or something, some sort of a problem that needs to be addressed.

Another interesting aspect we saw in this documentary, was related to vandalism, more specifically opinion towards it. The law of San Francisco clearly showed what is the city’s opinion on it, but there were others, the art dealers, the artists themselves and just art lovers who had their own opinion towards this. Most of the landowners had negative and even aggressive opinion towards street art and graffiti, and the reason for that was that they viewed this artwork as something damaging their house or property. In comparison, street artist viewed this as voicing their thoughts. Their goal was to make a point, to show their power, sadness, anger and etc towards someone or something.  In class, we gave street art this definition: “Defacement of (public) property”. Even though the explanation fits it is not entire, there is more to it. In my opinion definition should be as such: Defacement of public property by expressing their [street artists’] true thoughts and opinion.

Last key point that I am going to touch on is the need to possess the artwork. Similar to oil paintings, the street art, specifically Banksy’s art, were popular and many art dealers tried to sell them [street arts] to billionaires.  Stephan is a good example for this. He’s need to possess ‘Haight Street Rat’ (Banksy) was so great that he even offered 500k dollars to have it. Stephan wanted to posses this art and maybe later on resell it to make profit. In comparison to Brian whose true motive was to share the beauty of the art with the rest of the world. We even saw that Stephan took two painting from Palestine that Banksy and Eine had painted. We see Banksy, who names himself as such, who does not show his face or identity, who does not gain any money for what he is doing, and moreover he spends his money and time.

In conclusion, the ‘Saving Banksy’ (Boros) was a very interesting documentary to watch, and there definitely were lessons to gain. I am glad that watched this movie and for certain going to share my experience with my beloved ones.    

Banksy. Haight Street Rat. San Francisco. Street Art.

Saving Banksy. By Eva Boros. Dir. Colin M. Day. Perf. Ben Eine. 2017. Web. <imdb.com/title/tt4036488/>.