Off the wall

Banksy is my favourite street artist and I've always find his works very compelling and poignant of societal issues. His drawings are expressed facetiously with a slight hint of sarcasm. I don't know about you, but thats how I interpret them. Am planning to pay homage to his works coming may but oh wells, lets leave it to chance. Was reading online magazines when I found the above excerpt from Cut It Out. Considering the fact that I'm taking Advertising this semester, the passage was like a godsend, providing fresh perspectives in its entirety. Such a golden piece written by Banksy I thought, blessed with both artistic and poetic talent.

BUT...when I continued reading the online magazine's editorial, I was flabbergasted. Banksy plagiarizes. I too find it hard to believe, but then again how well do I know this Banksy guy. Hes indeed talented but plagiarizing from an old article and simply not giving credits to this poor writer is really..sad. I guess Banksy didnt even expect himself to be exposed given that the article was like what? written in the 90s..check this. As much as I support Banksy and all his artpieces (They are awesome by the way), I just couldn't agree with him plagiarizing.

I'm not god. I think I'm guilty of plagiarizing for some stupid technical reports which I still give credits to. I mean by giving credits shows that you are actually acknowledging that you are referencing from the person's work right? Anyways, Banksy took quite a substantial amount of ideas and phrasing from Sean Tejaratchi. The first few lines were original but its like he got lazy or what, taking off the later parts. This is disappointing because hes supposed to be an artist. Shouldn't an artist respect copyrights and originality more than anyone else? If there's anything that art is surviving on, it is originality.

Banksy's work strikes a chord in many people, it is something like anticulture, mocking at people's otherwise mundane lives. The wall fixture serves as a constant reminder or perhaps even a consolation, for people to pick up on these artpieces on their way to work.

This is a sad thing to happen and of course, the anonymous Banksy is not available to comment.