Banksy – Queen Street Art

‘The artworld is a huge hungry amoeba,’ my son informs us, before shifting his attention to the menu in the Italian restaurant we’ve found for lunch, following our visit to the Banksy exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow. He likes to make us work for his artistic insights, these days.

So I nod and go ‘Yeah sure’ like I know what he means, but my sister bites. ‘How’s that?’ she asks him.

‘Well it’s like this,’ he says, then gives his full attention to pouring balsamic vinegar into a little yellow dish of olive oil, dipping his artisan bread in the pre-emulsion, and gnawing the end of it with obvious relish.

‘I remember we used to have conversations and you weren’t annoying,’ I tell him.

‘No you don’t,’ he says.

‘No I don’t,’ I say.

‘Huge hungry amoeba,’ sis prompts.

‘Yeah well, Banksy began far outside the artworld, right? Outside the law, in fact. He was a graffiti artist, defacing public property for fun and respect, and trying not to get arrested. But look at him now. Art gallery exhibitions. Sotheby auctions. Money to burn.

‘The artworld amoeba saw something tasty, enfolded it in its tentacles and swallowed it whole.’

‘Pseudopodia,’ I tell him. ‘An octopus has tentacles. An amoeba has pseudopodia.’

‘Zatright?’ he says. ‘I almost went octopus but thought amoeba gave a better feel for the amorphous artworld engulfing its prey. It’s not the first time, either – Van Gogh, Duchamp, Pollock, Basquiat.

‘You can’t throw shit at the artworld for long, because it’s a shape-shifter. It’ll reach out and swallow you whole, no matter how far back you stand. Tracey Emin once got ridiculed for claiming her bed was an artwork, but she's now a professor at the Royal Academy of Arts. You could hardly get more mainstream artworld.’

This restaurant offers few vegan options, so I stick with the artisan bread and olive oil starter, while sis goes for a large pizza, and my son orders enough food to feed a horse with a tapeworm. He’s a working man these days.

‘But did you enjoy the exhibition?’ I ask him.

‘Well yeah, obviously,’ he says.

‘Thought you would. Banksy’s stuff has the same playful surface and thought-provoking depth I see in the art you make.’

‘Some critics refuse to see any depth,’ he tells me. ‘They say that real art is complex and challenging, so if people are queuing round the block, it must be too easy to be art.’

‘That assumes people are stupid and only art critics can recognise art,’ sis says.

‘Some of them even say that. Don’t talk to me about art critics!’ He waggles a large slice of pizza and melting cheese, in a way that might be aggressive if it wasn’t so limp and floppy.

‘An art critic is someone who can’t draw, paint or sculpt, has no original ideas but craves recognition, and needs people to listen to him. So he writes shit for money.’

He scratches his bearded chin and looks me in the eye, and I know what’s coming.

‘Just like you.’

‘Favourite part of the show?’ I ask, ignoring the abuse.

‘I liked the words as much as the images,’ he says. ‘Words can add something to art. Sometimes they are the art – like in Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit.

‘Couple of things Banksy wrote stick in my mind. ‘It’s not art unless it has the potential to be a disaster. That feels true to me. You can't know how it'll turn out when you begin a piece of art – and you have to take chances. 

‘I think my favourite though was his story about a child telling Picasso that when he grew up he wanted to be an artist.

‘You can’t do both,' Picasso told him.