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New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#381

Post by kelnos »

arduanika wrote: post #302
ninjagoo wrote: post #244

It's an interesting piece. Makes one think about all those folks that have a lot of pride and vanity for a place that they had no control over being born in. The luck of the draw. And very likely had very little to do with the current state of the place. Pride at age 21? Meaningless vanity, like being proud of being born with a silver spoon. Pride at age 80? Sure, if it was a life well-lived.

[flagged]

Such anger and contempt, for no good reason. If we're going to be calling names, I think the "twelve-year-old" moniker fits your attitude better.

Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#382

Post by pjc50 »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #61
periodjet wrote: post #33

Banksy is the patron saint of the “I’m 13 and this is deep” mentality.

He's also king of the "I'll criticize the west but I'll turn a blind-eye to non-democratic countries' wrongdoings" . A trait shared with virtually all intellectuals and artists in the west. There are fights worth fighting: for example there are 300 million women alive who have undergone forced genital mutilation. 300 million ain't cheap change. There are also hundreds of millions of people who applauded the killing o…

The Iran problem is a good example: it was wrong of them to massacre civilians, but you cannot fix this by .. bombing more civilians.

Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#383

Post by kelnos »

gopperl wrote: post #252
ninjagoo wrote: post #244

It's an interesting piece. Makes one think about all those folks that have a lot of pride and vanity for a place that they had no control over being born in. The luck of the draw. And very likely had very little to do with the current state of the place. Pride at age 21? Meaningless vanity, like being proud of being born with a silver spoon. Pride at age 80? Sure, if it was a life well-lived.

[flagged]

I think that kind of pride is pointless and unproductive.

I think it is right to be grateful to your ancestors for their achievements in ultimately giving you the life that you have.

But proud? Hubris lies down that path.

Re: luck, yes, it is absolutely luck that you were born to the parents you were born to, located in the place you were born in. I think you have the sense of the luck direction flipped from what GP meant. If you look at it from the perspective of your ancestors, then sure, your birth wasn't luck: it was a choice (or an accident, I suppose).

But from the perspective of you, it's luck: you didn't get to choose the circumstances surrounding your birth. You got lucky in that sense; you could have instead had bad luck and been born on the streets in a third-world country to a drug-addicted single parent with no money and no prospects.

Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#384

Post by samsin »

hristov wrote: post #316
declan_roberts wrote: post #99

Things were more fun when they were actually transgressive and not just the established doctrine of those in power.

If this was the established doctrine of those in power, then why is the Iran war still going on, and why is the UK providing air bases for the Iran war? This is obviously a comment on the Iran war.

Given the timing, seems more related to domestic politics.

Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#385

Post by pjc50 »

ericmay wrote: post #281
dreambuffer wrote: post #170

England has a long history producing artwork against some institution, only for that institution to get worse over time. George Orwell wrote about the dangers of authoritarianism and surveillance, and since then the UK government has only ratcheted up their surveillance and authority. They also made a movie called This is England which straightforwardly depicts young English nationalists ruining their lives with nati…

England has gotten more liberal over time, not less. I'm not following your logic here. It seems you're wanting to criticize the government of the UK for being authoritarian and ratcheting up the surveillance state, but simultaneously criticize nationalists and link them to this government, but nationalists and right-leaning groups haven't really been in charge of the UK.

> nationalists and right-leaning groups haven't really been in charge of the UK.

Did you miss the whole Brexit thing?

Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#386

Post by WhereIsTheTruth »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #373
WhereIsTheTruth wrote: post #370

For some unknown reasons, the mainstream media wants to make sure i see this Baby, psyop me, one more time

Next Banksy artwork should depict paranoid people who delude themselves to the point where they think everything is about them.

A sheep is a sheep, biped or quadruped, it doesn't matter

Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#387

Post by pjc50 »

arduanika wrote: post #302
ninjagoo wrote: post #244

It's an interesting piece. Makes one think about all those folks that have a lot of pride and vanity for a place that they had no control over being born in. The luck of the draw. And very likely had very little to do with the current state of the place. Pride at age 21? Meaningless vanity, like being proud of being born with a silver spoon. Pride at age 80? Sure, if it was a life well-lived.

[flagged]

.. what?

Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#388

Post by orwin »

overfeed wrote: post #243
pirate787 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK the establishment is generally unsettled by the display of the English flag. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/29/uk/st-george-flag-england...

Regional chauvinism is never good for a healthy union. Even if it were the Union Jack, flag-shaggers are almost always blood and soil zealots.

I disagree here. Local/regional chauvinism is funny and de-dramatize nationalism while being a very good point to start discussions. Seeing the Gwenn ah Du flag in the US or in other foreign country is basically a "come talk to me" call.

Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#389

Post by testdelacc1 »

forgotusername6 wrote: post #4

I think it's a reasonable statue. But does anyone else think it's a bit obvious, more so than his other work? Like there is no doubt on the meaning at all, it's all right there on the surface level.

In what world is Banksy supposed to be subtle?

Did you look at his artwork of a judge hitting a protestor with a gavel while the protestor was bleeding on the ground and think “huh, I wonder what this means” (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2z30p033ro).

By those standards a man wrapped in the flag walking off the edge is the height of subtlety. I guarantee you this - none of the people it should be offending will realise he’s talking about them.

Re: New statue in London, attributed to Banksy, of a suited man, blinded by a flag

#390

Post by irthomasthomas »

Trust HN to turn a banksy into a Rorschach test.

The statue is in Westminster, right by Whitehall. The heart of British government. It depicts a figure in a suit, marching off a ledge, completely blinded by a flag.

Who wears a suit and marches through Westminster under a flag?

- Businessmen? No. Merchants have no country.

- Officials? They wear suits but don't march

- Old-guard politicians? Rarely march or flag-wave with any conviction.

So who are we left with? The populist. The Nigel Farage archetype. The suited firebrand who wrap themselves in nationalist fervor, stoke the rabble, and blindly march everyone right off a cliff.

Banksy isn't known for complex, multi-layered messaging. He is popular precisely because he uses visual shorthand to say plainly what the general public is already thinking. There is no hidden 4D chess; it's just blunt satire about blind patriotism.

Edit: This also explains why the government is happy to keep this particular Banksy on display.

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