Graffiti Wall

The pieces of art that I have chosen are from an artist named Bansky, who is well known for his graffiti art in Europe.  While Bansky has many different types of art, I chose three that I believe have powerful and ambiguous messages.  When I think of the definition of graffiti, I think of illegal wall art first and secondly that it is the opposition to propaganda.  I see it as resistance to propaganda and propaganda in itself for that reason.  The pieces of artwork that I chose are ones that caught my attention.  All but the last are making fun of something in popular culture.  While the last one may not be making fun of anything, the addition of people’s hand prints alter the original meaning of the photo to make it into something very different than the intended purpose.

The first piece of art that I chose was one that has two beloved American characters yet is deeply disturbing once we see what is happening with the person who Ronald McDonald and Mickey Mouse are holding hands with.  The piece shows what looks like Ronald and Mickey holding hands with a small child as they walk.  Ronald and Mickey look happy but the boy looks completely horrified.  At first, I did not notice the horrified look on the boy, which I think is supposed to be the point of the piece of art.  To me, this photo represents the age of Disney and fast food carrying kids into a whole different world than what they lived in before these institutions were around.  These kids also have no choice if they want to follow along or not, Disney and Ronald are ushering them into their future whether they like it or not.  The message that I derived from this is that the future will carry us forward, whether or not we want and even if we kick and scream in protest.  What looks like fun and happiness on the outside or at first glance can be horror to those involved, like the child in the middle. 

The next piece that I chose depicts the Jungle Book characters bounded and blindfolded in a deforested area waiting for an axe man to do something.  When I first looked at this, I saw two different stories.  The first was that the axe man was just finished cutting down all of the trees, and all that was left was to kill the inhabitants.  This message seems even more powerful as the artist uses beloved Disney characters and not real forest animals that have to deal with extinction due to habitat loss.  Using Disney characters makes it much more of a sensitive subject because we all know and love Mowgli and his band of forest friends, so seeing him face the butcher creates more emotions that just seeing real animals that we have no connection with.  The other scenario that I saw was that the Disney characters were about to be executed for what they did to the forest.  While I have not read the Jungle Book in a long time, I remember the jungle being burnt down at the end.  I may be completely wrong, but it was all the fighting that caused its destruction.  Now the characters are facing the music as they must answer for what they have done.  With either viewing, there is a message in both that points out what deforestation does.  Either innocent bystanders are felled along with the forest or they are the cause.  In both scenarios they have to meet the same fate as the forest.  I found this piece to be depressing as it shows deforestation involving something so innocent with something so devastating.

The last piece is one that I chose because I think that it started as one idea and turned into something completely different as it was altered by time and peoples hand prints.  The piece depicts a girl or boy reaching for a balloon that is out of his or her grasp.  The wall that this is painted on has become deteriorated and the face, part of the legs and the feet are missing.  The art could very well be drawn this way, but it really looks like the wall has deteriorated after the art was applied.  The missing pieces of wall make the child an ambiguous sex and a child without a face.  The part that really caught my eye was the mud hand prints on the wall in between the child’s reaching arm and the floating balloon.  All of the hand prints (and a few footprints) that are on it are in between.  I do not know what the significance of all of these hand prints means to whoever did it.  I imagine that the floating balloon is the loss of innocence in children and the hand prints are done by people who recognize the plight of trying to hold on to something that is unreachable.