421–430 of 615 posts
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It is universal. The flag, the state, the man. Details don't matter.
In the context of UK politics, and given Banksy's previous socio-political work, this statue is probably a response to 'the nationalists': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Raise_the_Colours
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He’s a British artist, the sculpture is in London and the phenomenon of raising of St George’s Cross on every lamppost on every roundabout is a recent initiative of the British right. Most people will be linking the statement of this sculpture to this activity. (I’m more likely to see the white rose of the House of York in “opposition” to the flag shaggers than a rainbow or anything else, in my neck of the woods, but…
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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.
I have no idea what it is supposed to mean.
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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.)
To me, the blank (not black) nature of the flag is the point: it's about being blinded by any ideology, even one that the artist or beholder might agree with.
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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.
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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. I feel more that it is a commentary on "blind nationalism" of which Brexit is one example, but not the only one, or the most recent. Brexit may be "over" now, but the mindset is still very much with us in the UK and elsewhere. In other words, any successful art relates to more than one specific situation, and allows more than one reading.
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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.)
And how is blindly following a flag differ between a national flag and an ideology flag?
Anyone else leaving up a huge statue in the middle of the park would be arrested
Yeah, and that is precisely the point. This contradiction at the heart of it does a lot of work and is a very valuable part of the art. This contradiction has led me to think a lot about rules and their role in society and to what extent pure strict rules based societies are a worthwhile goal and on the other hand what it means of we make exceptions.
seems missed in the general commentary that there is also an inherent commentary on the western tradition of “blind justice” https://i.etsystatic.com/13403651/r/il/40b0bf/6851322246/il_...
How so? The concept of the 'blindness' of justice is antithetical to blind patriotism.
exactly. i mean only to point out that the Banksy work intentionally invokes the figure of Blind Justice to inform the work, however you may interpret it.