
Host: Banksy, the mysterious street artist from Britain has been doing ingenious art 1)stunts for 20 years, and during the last decade became a superstar for 2)stenciling ladders on the wall that Israel built on the West Bank, for installing sculptures of hooded 3)Guantanamo prisoners at Disneyland. He’s been sort of quiet the past few years until last month. Banksy showed up in New York to do what he called “Better Out Than In.” A new Banksy work popped up on some undisclosed street every day for a month.
His experiment generated tons of buzz all over the country and the world, and may be the most extensively documented contemporary art show in history.
Jerry Saltz is the senior art critic at New York Magazine, and he followed Banksy’s work while he was in New York. Jerry, welcome to Studio.
Jerry: Thanks for having me.
Host: So, first off, can you give people an idea of exactly what work Banksy was doing?
Jerry: By in large it was one work a day, painting mostly, but some sculpture. There were kind of cartoon things, there were balloons, there was a dog peeing on a fire 4)hydrant, there were circus kind of acts, there was a truck filled with stuffed animals, some text pieces quoting this or that famous author, or saying cheeky things.

Host: Right. So this 5)residency, as he called it, was, has to be, the most talked-about visual art event of the year. Was it anything close to the best?
Jerry: It wasn’t even what I would call an event of art. I would call it more an event of promotion, hype, incredible British ability to put on an event and a show with 6)razzamatazz.
Host: But, given that, certainly from 7)Andy Warhol through 8)Damien Hirst, so much of contemporary art has been about all of those things, a buzz and hype and 9)PR. Jerry: Absolutely! Absolutely, except with Warhol, there is art to back it up. Nobody used those colors before Warhol used them. They had been there since the beginning. Nobody overlapped 10)silk screens before Warhol did. Banksy is basically a photo-realist, who takes an “artish”style and brings it to the street, and I give him a lot of credit for doing that. Would I call him a great street artist? I’d say he’s a really successful one and especially at producing reaction.
Host: Yeah.
Jerry: And that is, I’ll grant, an art, and if more artists had that capacity, we’d see more people out there doin’ it.
Host: So should we be happy that this big populist reaction was provoked?
Jerry: I have to say that anytime that the group mind gets together, that somebody provides a kind of a local campfire for everyone to gather around and throw their two cents in, I’m for that. I 11)had a ball at every one of the Banksy’s I went to. The Banksy, itself, was irrelevant. Its context was even irrelevant. But people together were not.

主持人:班克斯,這位神秘的英國街頭藝術(shù)家做獨創(chuàng)性的藝術(shù)噱頭展覽已經(jīng)有20年了。10年前,他在以色列于約旦河西岸建的一面墻上畫的梯子,以及在迪士尼樂園的蒙面關(guān)塔那摩囚犯雕塑讓他成了超級明星。然而這幾年,他似乎有點沉寂。但上個月,班克斯出現(xiàn)在美國紐約,進行街頭藝術(shù)展覽,他稱之為“外面比里面好”。一個新的班克斯作品在一些不知名的街道上展出,為期一個月。他的實驗性展覽引起了整個國家及全世界的熱烈討論,這可能是歷史上引起最廣泛討論的一個現(xiàn)代藝術(shù)展。
杰里·薩爾茲是《紐約雜志》的資深藝術(shù)評論家,他在紐約關(guān)注了班克斯的這些作品。杰里,歡迎你。
杰里:感謝你的邀請。
主持人:那,首先,你能給大家介紹一下班克斯到底做了什么嗎?
杰里:總的來說就是每天展出一件作品,主要是涂鴉,還有一些雕塑。有類似卡通的畫,有氣球,一只狗在消防栓上撒尿等,有類似馬戲團的表演,一輛裝滿了填充動物的卡車,一些引用了名人的話語或?qū)懼S刺性話語的文字涂鴉。

主持人:好的。班克斯所謂的這次“常駐活動”是今年被談?wù)摰米疃嗟囊曈X藝術(shù)活動。在這些作品中,有沒有哪個接近最高水平?
杰里:我甚至不會認為那是一次藝術(shù)活動。我覺得這只是一次宣傳活動、一次炒作,這表現(xiàn)出英國人以極大的精力舉辦一次活動和表演的非凡能力。
主持人:但是,考慮到這一點,那明顯是受到安迪·沃霍爾和達明安·赫斯特的影響,因此很多當代藝術(shù)都是這樣的,引起轟動、進行炒作、進行公關(guān)宣傳。……