If there is a niche for graffiti writers who paint exquisite, delicate nature pieces with a dash of fantasy landscape thrown in then a huge chunk gets filled by Hull’s finest escapee, Xenz.
Meeting Of Styles 2009
Cans Festival II, Leake St 2008
Bristol 2006 (photo 2009)
Xenz has a new solo show at scene stalwart gallery and publisher Nelly Duff.
The Golden Branch
Duffers and Dufferettes, as the gallery likes to calls its fans, will be well aware that Nelly Duff has an extraordinary knack for a lush piece of art so when Xenz casts his beadies over the eye candy hanging on the ground floor he figured that going circular would be one way to stand out among the rectangular wall fillers, now we know the circumstance of the circumference in this impressive collection.
Elegance is a word that sits very comfortably in a description of a Xenz painting though the graffiti writer always lurks among the branches, literally. As a graffiti writer the letterform must reign paramount and outdoors Xenz produces stunning landscape paintings with his name cunningly disguised within the branches and trees.
Xenz, Busk,(both written in the rock formations!) Hackney Wick 2011
Meeting of Styles 2019 (this young man was just entranced by Xenz'z mural, beautiful to see)
The painting in the show may look a million miles from any graffiti aesthetic but look closely, again the letters are subtly secreted inside the lines of the flora. Illustrated by "mouseover" on the next image - best viewed on desktop or laptop rather than mobiles or tablets
The circular paintings were inspired by the zen buddist ensō symbol, ensō circles capture a concept of fulfilment, calm, strength and most particularly, elegance and enlightenment.
A collection of beautiful watery paintings on handmade paper discs roughly a foot in diameter were painted in a very gestural manner; simple colours , dots, lines and drips were applied and left as they fell, no corrections, no smoothing of curves or sharpening of edges and a sense of grace and flow in the finished article is clear.
Sketches From The Valleys Of The Shadows
Graffiti writers love to show off their skill versatility and wit by writing alternative spellings of their monikers and Xenz was quick to spot that if you corrupt the label ensō by simply adding an x in front, you have almost got Xenz’z name ready made in there. It deserves a new form for the possessive.
Xenz'z
Xenz'z too
Xenz’z interior art has often featured wispy forest fronds and filaments frequented by flying fauna. The colourful birds flitting through the branches and hovering in front of soft petals are based on humming birds. This goes back to an occasion when Xenz was enjoying some traditional hospitality high up a Jamaican mountain when a long tailed humming bird flitted out of the forest canopy to perch on his finger like it owned it. A few magical seconds and some herb imprinted the experience in Xenz’z mind and thence into his art.
Turquoise Dreams
Humming Bird detail
Nelly Duff’s upstairs lounges is a homely snug, embodied in the slightly stained and battered looking lintels over the fireplaces. Xenz happened to notice some circular coffee cup stains and that triggered his ensō reflex, so he added some beautiful birds. There’s nothing quite as naughty as a little tagging indoors.
Gold cutting in
Flutter
All round, Xenz has produced a wheelie great show, well worth a spin. (sorry about that!)
BSMT Space (see photo below) 5D STOKE NEWINGTON ROAD LONDON N16 8BH
In December 2008 a parliament, for that is what a group of owls is called, assembled in the famous Pure Evil Gallery cellar for a solo show by Dscreet. Graffoto raved about Dscreet’s solo show in that famous cellar and indeed a pair of Owls has adorned NoLions Towers ever since.
Words Up - 2008
Ten Years After we flock to BSMT Space, again a cellar, for Dscreet’s first London gig - sorry, show since then. Titled Top 40 Covers, Dscreet presented his painted homages to a variety of musical highlights in a show staged as a music gig and BSMT rocked that night!
drunk girls
That opening Thursday was special for Dscreet on several levels; he appears to be One Hundred Years old and evidently has immense wisdom like his owls but opening night was DScreet’s 40th birthday. The choice of 40 as the key number in the show title will resonate with ancient music fans from the pre digital era for whom everything came to a Grinding Halt at 6pm on Sunday evenings as the Top 40 rundown aired on Radio 1. Claire Grogan was probably not available but a suitable rock ambience was brought to the venue by Brick Lane street musician Lewis Floyd Henry, opening for Dscreet.
Sadly the “phone in the crowd” recording makes this sound crap which completely undersells how hard this dude rocked but there was a lot of rocking going on that night.
Lewis Floyd Henry - Live at BSMT Space
Lewis also has old school pedigree as a proper graff writer, that's the kind of attention to detail DScreet has put into this show.
Rockin All Over The World
Dscreet owls have perched on East London’s walls for years, normally Graffoto likes to pick a few pellets from the archives just to revel in the history and development of the subject artist out on the streets but with Dscreet did Too Much Too Young making such a selection an invidious task.
Dubl Owl, Howl Owl, Owl and Pussycat (2015)
Of course, not to forget some Brilliant Compositions
Sweet Toof, Cyclops, Dscreet 2007
Cyclops, Sweet Toof, Dscreet, Kid Acne, Seks (TRP), also feat Toasters & Snoe (TRP) (photo 2008)
As his owls are so popular, the fact that Dscreet is a phenomenal graffiti writer is perhaps a little bit overlooked. The owls and the graffiti both featured in this combative collab with Conor Harrington, we loved the blood spurting everywhere and note also the musical reference in the tribute to Adam "MCA" Yauch of Beastie Boys.
Dscreet v. Conor Harrington, feat RIP MCA (2012)
Dscreeeeeet (2009)
Dscreet (2008)
Although there is a neat link between age 40/top 40 for this gig, the theme isn’t a contrivance for the benefit of a show, musical references have featured frequently in Dscreet’s street art. The tribute to Lou Reed based on the Velvet Underground lyrics to I’ll be Your Mirror is cemented on a Shoreditch wall with a pair of mirror image owls, in the gallery the same song is executed on an actual mirror.
I’ll Be Your Mirror – Top 40 Covers 2018
I’ll Be Your Mirror/RIP Lou Reed (2013)
Similarly Dscreet has covered The Doors on the streets and in the show.
An American Prayer – The Doors
Break On Through – The Doors (2015)
In recent months a demonic character has appeared in DScreet’s street art, generally the character, believed to be the artist’s alter ego, is up to no good, some kind of Devil In Disguise.
Identified nutters: Dscreet, Pez, Nylon, (2018)
This demonic character appears in one of the shows highlight, the DScreet visual rendition of the Bob Marley tune Time Will Tell. Bob Marley has also featured in DScreet’s street art, Marley’s classic Three Little Birds become three lurid owls.
Time Will Tell - Bob Marley
Three Little Birds (2014)
The troublemaker is conjuring flames from the palm of his hands in the unmistakable Firestarter while Dscreet's friend and fellow writer Nylon makes an collaborative contribution.
Firestarter - The Prodigy - Dscreet & Nylon
BSMT’s cellar space terminates in a pair of vaulted cells which lend themselves to something installational, DScreet blacks out the space and illuminates his characters with a phosphorescent glow evoking that thrill when auditorium lights go down and faint shadows stir indicating stars hefting guitars and adjusting codpieces, that point in a gig where anticipation ends and sonic delivery commences. Mouseover this pic to see the effect.
Ceremony – Joy Division (guitar) c/w Reign In Blood - Slayer *Mouseover image*
The sexual murmurings on Aphex Twins’ “Windowlicker” translate on canvas into a curiously tilted owl, or at least that’s how it seemed at first glance until longer scrutiny revealed the secret duality in the image, perhaps I have had too sheltered an upbringing as it did take quite a while.
Windowlicker - Aphex Twin
Talking Heads’ cinematic rock gig film Stop Making Sense (34 years ago? Really???) begins with lead singer David Byrne strolling onto an empty stage with just a guitar and a beatbox, things can hardly get more rock ‘n roll and it’s not a million miles from how Lewis Floyd Henry rocked BSMT. Hanging on the wall is a lone guitar, painted black with the lyrics to Psycho Killer penned on it.
Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
Mother Sky by Can refers to a droning throb of krautrock sustained by a plodding riff and drug addled lyrics, neatly captured on canvas by an unending psychedelic flow of vaporous digits streaming out of a can, madness I say (as did Can).
Mother Sky - Can (collab with Eoin)
These owls may have the serious stares of classical music geeks but their spiky hair do screams punk and they don’t get much more OG punk than The Clash.
Guns Of Brixton (The Clash)
In a list of greatest hits it takes some doing to stand out but among the candidate gig highlights was Dscreet's imagining of Black Sabbath’s Planet Caravan. The Sabb have of course featured in Dscreet’s street art in his interpretation of Symptom Of The Universe.
Planet Caravan - Black Sabbath
Symptom Of The Universe - Black Sabbath (2012)
It was like spotting an old friend to spy an owl from the Words Up show perched in the BSMT Space rafters, which bring us right back where we started from.
Top 40 Covers, BSMT 2018 - also feat The Look Of Love, I'll Be Your Mirror & Heart Of Glass
Words Up, Pure Evil Gallery (2008)
The history of rock is often forged in grimy downstairs locations, think of the Cavern in Liverpool, the 100 Club in London. Dscreet’s opening was as much an event as it was the beginning of an exhibition of some painted art. The show must go on (until 1st November). The blues that rocked BSMT Space’s subterranean cellar that night didn’t make anyone homesick.
Banksy Love Is In The Bin Sothebys, New Bond Street 13th - 14th Oct 2018
The art world lives in a truly weird parallel biosphere: it wears different clothes, eats different food, holidays in places Club 18-30 does not reach and it treasures bizarrely different values. Condemning art world indulgences and privilege is something the art world itself does not seem to be terribly fond of however when it is Banksy firing a bolt through art world sensibility without a shred of doubt whole world notices!
The basic facts have been circulating since Friday last and the fact that you are reading this suggests you won’t be plucking splinters from your stripped wood floor out of your chin at mention of a Banksy Girl With Balloon painting that shredded itself at a Sotheby’s auction Friday before last.
As the braying arty rich assembled for London Art Week, each of the major auction houses felt compelled to maintain their profile in the swanky art market place by drinking champagne paid for with other people’s money and holding their contemporary art auctions. The highlight of the Sotheby’s auction was to be a Banksy which since the auction has received prior acclaim as possibly the best of the copies of this image, expecting a new PB auction result for Banksy etc etc.
In roomful of suits and pearl necklaces, the auctioneer’s gavel came down selling the artwork which was conveniently mounted on a wall, at a price that matched Banksy’s previous highest price for an artwork. At that moment the art slipped out of the frame through a shredder to the accompaniment of what sounded like an artic truck reversing towards the rostrum.
Luckily the moment was captured on film and appeared on Banksy’s website and Instagram account this week. Or should that say “Curiously, the moment was captured…" As the bidding nudged towards a new record for Banksy’s art, someone in the room was not concentrating on the flamboyant auctioneer at all but happened to be filming the artwork as the auction ended, what were the chances huh? Photos of the suspected cameraman who is, along with many others in the room, suspected of not being Banksy are out there should you wish to locate them.
Sothebys, October 5th 2018, video courtesy Banksy website
Speculation and conspiracy surround this particular stunt by Banksy. Could this really have been fabricated in 2006 in anticipation that it might appear in an auction years later? How many would Banksy have to make to ensure that the stunt could be executed in public rather than stymied by a private sale? Was it pure chance that this particular art piece would be mounted so visibly on the auction room wall rather than just wheeled in, given its 2 minutes in the sunlight on an auctioneer’s easel then trundled out again? Back in 2006 we had yet to experience the first of the gold plated white gloved Urban Art Auctions (Bonhams, covered here), could anyone have reasonably predicted that Banksy’s art would be so lauded (i.e. expensive) as to be the highlight of an art week contemporary art auction 12 years down the line?
The stunt is a work of genius in its production, execution (Sotheby’s involvement?) and impact. Banksy of course is mocking the art world’s obsession with wealth, value and profit before actual art.
I Can’t Believe You Morons Buy this Shit, Banksy. Source: Banksy website.
Was Plan A that Girl With Balloon would shred itself to complete destruction? If it had Banksy would have highlighted to perfection the precariousness and ephemerality of the trivia to which the art world attaches its highest valuations. We won’t know ever.[see UPDATE below]
Ironically the attention that this stunt garnered has stimulated speculation that the value of this specific piece has actually soared. Sothebys put out a press release which confirmed that the purchaser is proceeding with completion of the sale, suggesting the buyer certainly seems to think so.
“When the hammer came down last week and the work was shredded, I was at first shocked, but gradually I began to realise that I would end up with my own piece of art history.”
said the rich female European collector (Sotheby’s press release). You can but imagine horror and a completely different press release if the shredding had gone on to completion, one suspects the art world would have more of a struggle to see that relic as an artwork. As insurance against someone with a car door fob accidentally reactivating the shredder it would seem sensible if the buyer removed any batteries located in the frame!
Sotheby's press release also had a statement from a Sotheby's suit describing this as a new Banksy “Banksy didn’t destroy an artwork in the auction, he created one. Following his surprise intervention on the night, we are pleased to confirm the sale of the artist’s newly titled Love is in the Bin..”; so declared Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s Head of Contemporary Art, Europe
Banksy’s authentication agency Pest Control issued a Certificate of Authenticity so confirming that in its reconfigured form this remains an art work by Banksy and gave it the title “Love Is In The Bin”, a jokey reference to the nickname applied to Banksy’s image Love Is In The Air, also known as the Flower Chucker, which inspired more ripoff teeshirts than any other Banksy painting. Love Is In The Bin has been dated as 2018.
Love Is In The Air, Banksy. Source: Banksy website.
That change of title and more importantly, changing the date of the artwork to 2018 as opposed to say “2006 and 2018” or “2006 modified 2018” neatly swerves away from suggestions that the original Sothebys catalogue listing was possibly inaccurate in some of its details.
Dissecting the clues and X-raying the artefacts has all the romance of a debate on whether Father Christmas’s sledge is made with sustainable holly and ivy, it really misses the substance of Banksy’s achievement. This weekend, and now we get closer to the point of this post, Sothebys put the so called new artwork on public display. Queuing was about 45 minutes to an hour on Sunday afternoon, the guards marshalled orderly lines of visitors, the artwork was beautifully hung to be visible from both sides, well lit, well sign posted and well controlled.
The window display on New Bond Street trumpets the next swish expensive auction, called “The Midas Touch” but doesn’t the display look exactly like some gold has been passed through a shredder? Thats art world alchemy right there, even shredding can be turned into gold.
Sotheby's window display 14th October 2018
When we say “well sign posted”, someone in Sotheby’s signage department couldn’t handle the complexity of the new title and left it suggesting something rather more fetishistic than Pest Control probably intended.
Love In The Bin - Sotheby's
The catalogue listing for the original "Girl With Balloon" piece described the work as "signed and dedicated on the reverse", presumably what looks like black tape in a recess on the back is masking the dedication but there's the signature in all its glory.
Love Is In The Bin rear view
Banksy signature
Barely 200 yards from Sotheby.s is the now far less iconic but I would argue much superior specimen of Banksy art, Shop Till You Drop.
Shop Till You Drop, Banksy, 2011
This afternoon it was completely deserted!
Shop Till You Drop, Banksy, 14th October 2018
Banksy may have a lot of disparaging things to say about the art world but the ironic effect of his stunt is to draw far more people into the bosom of the opulent, canape nibbling, air kissing art world and none to the very close by street art masterpiece, whilst simultaneously ramping up the commodification of his art.
Shop Till You Drop 2011
Banksy – you've clearly got to up your shredding game here!
17th October UPDATE:
Last Sunday Graffoto said "Was Plan A that Girl With Balloon would shred itself to complete destruction? If it had Banksy would have highlighted the precariousness and ephemerality of the trivia to which the art world attaches its highest valuations. We won’t know ever. "
WRONG! (at least the last sentence anyway) Banksy "Shredding The Girl And Balloon - Director's Cut" just released shows plan A WAS complete destruction
