Yeah, definetly had the city agree to it, no way in hell to sneak a statue like that without the cops getting involved.
[flagged]
"The Underground is a Lie", successful version.
New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag
201–210 of 615 posts
Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag
#202Statue of a man in a suit walking off a precipice while blinding himself with the flag he is carrying. https://banksy.co.uk/index.html
I can't get over the flag itself… It's a black flag. Not a British flag, not a white flag,… A BLACK flag. Historically, the black flag is strongly associated with anarchism, anti-state politics, revolt, and rejection of national authority. Had he colored it in the union jack, then I would've said it was nationalism, and the person is blinded by nationalism. But. This is Banksy, black-and-white Banksy, so there may be…
It's styled after other bronze statues that are all one colour because of the material. Given the context in which he put this up, it's a pretty clear commentary on nationalism in general, so using a specific country's flag wouldn't work.
Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stop and reflect for a moment. Then continue as usual (quite likely)
I had to check your other comments and now I get it that you still regard flags as having some sacred meaning in the great national past, but for me they always were about gathering as much human expendables underneath. Sure, they might have had generated enough sacred reverence, those bloodbaths of past.
> you still regard flags as having some sacred meaning
I would like to disagree on this point.
Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag
#204I doubt Banksy is a single person fwiw.
Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it? The flag is black, so could be a variety of things, not necessarily even a national flag. Just a flag in a march. (Anarchism uses a black flag.)
The guy is walking off a cliff and he is blinded by the flag. I assume it is a commentary on Brexit. It is just short of a decade since that vote. Nationalism blinded people and they did something stupid. Not dissimilar to what is going on in the US too.
> I assume it is a commentary on Brexit.
The Brexit vote was a decade ago and though many mourn the outcome, it’s a bit late to be erecting artwork about it. References to being blinded by a flag now are probably about the particular far-right organizing of the last year or so that employs the English and UK flags in a very particular way. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Raise_the_Colours
Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
This criticism would carry more weight if the people this statue criticises had the intellectual and emotional maturity beyond that of a teenager. Unfortunately, they often don't meet that bar, so the message has to be in a form they can understand.
You're being downvoted but honestly the "everyone is twelve now" meme explains our collective societal dysfunction perfectly. There's no point to complexity or subtlety in art anymore, or even any kind of symbolism at all. Anything that needs to be interpreted, that doesn't have a single objective meaning which gets spelled out for you. Flag man is silly. Everyone is twelve now.
100%. One can't advocate for the dismantling of the Dept. of Education, the tearing down of "educational elites", and the wholesale banning of books, while at the same time crying foul when people say they have the intellectual capacity of a 12-year-old.
Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag
#207If someone was to deface this statue would they face legal action? It’s kind of an interesting thought, side if it really was just put up without the city’s authority it would be okay, and if it wasn’t it defeats the entire point. “Rage against the machine” by doing what the machine wants type thing.
Really makes you wonder about other things as well...
Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Banksy was born Robin Gunningham but later took the name David Jones long been known as establishment friendly
It's pretty obvious once you look at the art - it has a very specific political leaning, which also happens to have been the predominant one in the UK since Blair.
closet-fascist?
Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag
#209I doubt Banksy is a single person fwiw.
He's also Satoshi.
Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not? We anarchists with careers do in fact exist. There are probably dozens of us outside of tech, even!
How would you say your numbers compare to the amount of business leaders who are marketing themselves with messages of liberation, but actually want to usher in an era of unfettered corporate authoritarianism? I was not saying an anarchist wearing a suit cannot exist. Rather I was pointing out the current pop culture abuse of the concepts of anarchism/libertarianism.
I’m not sure; lots of people self-identify as anarchists while holding beliefs that are diametrically opposed to my own, and lots of people who are much closer to my own beliefs call themselves other things because they’re either afraid of the word “anarchism” or understand it to mean something else.
If I had to ballpark it, I’d guess something like 1:5 people in tech are broadly aligned with me politically (meaning “less extreme, but directionally similar”) while maybe 1:100 would self-identify as an anarchist and 1:500 both self-identify and align fully with me.
Does that help?