뱅크시(Banksy): 공공영역과 소통에 의한 ‘담론적 장소’

Abstract

This thesis is a study about the English graffiti artist Banksy. Banksy is a well-known graffiti artist who is variously described as a ‘guerrilla artist’, an ‘art terrorist’. His graffiti has gained him worldwide fame, although nobody knows who Banksy really is. Despite being hugely popular he has managed to remain anonymous all this time because Under British Law street art is considered to be vandalism. His most famous street paintings are a series of black-and-white stencilled rats. Witty and subversive, his stencils show monkeys with weapons of mass destruction, policeman with smiley faces, rats with drills and umbrellas. His works command tens of thousands of pounds at auction irrespective of his purpose and he counts Hollywood actors among his fans. His works’ location has become a tourist attraction with a map. He explains his street art works as vandalism or brandalism. He deals with the problem of capitalistic society and the question of human rights, with icons of rats, monkeys, girls, policemen and soldiers. His witty and satiric depiction of public power has doubled the interest of people. Banksy’s works are site-specific art. In modern art history, the nomadism of artworks has now replaced the nomadism of artists for site-specifity. Banksy himself leaves his photos and UCC of his work-processing and art works in his web site and wants to share these folders. Many mass media and internet users chase Banksy’s traces, and take photos as well as itinerant artists for works. It is the index, the specific character of photos. It creates other context about artworks with the intention of changing the production method and distribution process of art. It converts enjoyment of exhibition and buying of artworks to artist of provider and audience of user. In this context, specific relation between an art work and its site is based on the recognition on its unfixed impermanence, to be experienced as an unrepeatable and fleeting situation. Kwon miwon explains site-specificity created to exist in a certain place as ‘discursive site’. It means discourses on the context of place is specific as well as the specific condition of the physical place. It is caused by the impermanent destiny of street artworks and anonymity of street artist. These diverse context around Banksy’s artwork helps access his artwork readily. Jeremy Rifkin’s ‘access’ is also descriptive of Banksy’s work as well as Kwon miwon’s ‘discursive site’ and James Meyer’s ‘functional site’. With the journey into the new world of hypercapitalism, where accessing experiences becomes more important than owning things, Banksy makes attempts to appreciate his work on the street, not galleries, and on internet. So he protects audience’s short right. It is to do with experience through as discourse, not as object, which has been quite crucial to his work. It was discussed especially by the context of physical place and appreciation of Banksy’s artwork with the index of discursive trace. So it seems Banksy’s work endows restore to appreciation of artwork what has been enjoyed by the privileged few.