ART
Self-Erasure: Banksy Hunting in Utah
/ Rob Tennant
02.25.10
Exit Through the Gift Shop, the new film by mystery-shrouded UK street artist Banksy, premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, and was chock full o’ buzz. Oh, and art, too.
First there was the rumor circulating in the form of the question –– “Will Banksy finally reveal himself?” –– alluding to the artist’s legendary/notorious anonymity. More than that, the question underscored the film festival’s sense of self-importance in presuming that a man who has taken pains to remain hidden from the public eye through a decade of international activity would choose this of all venues for his grand reveal. He didn’t.
Of more interest to us flyover country yokels, however, was the appearance of Bansky-esque stencils and tags in and around Salt Lake City and Park City during the week leading up to the film festival. Local social media began rumbling with potential Bansky sightings on Wednesday, January 20. On Thursday local artist of canvas and wall, Trent Call, posted a pic of a stenciled kneeling, praying boy alongside the pink-scrawled statement “forgive our trespassing”. Call adds that the work was buffed over by the next day.
The word was that Park City’s Main Street area had been hit with multiple Banksy tags. Photos of a downtown Salt Lake billboard originally advertising the billboard company itself was left with its “I guess you could say I’m in outside sales” slogan intact, but now signed for attribution with a stylized Banksy signature. It is a testament to the artist’s stature that even the stodgy, Mormon church-owned daily paper The Deseret News was on the story. So, I grabbed my camera, conscripted an accomplice, and prepared to head to Park City to see what I could find.
Park City is approximately 40 minutes and a few tax brackets away from Salt Lake up a twisty canyon stretch of I-80. Not long ago, it was a quiet rundown former mining town, home mostly to ski bums going for extra points on their prolonged adolescence. The past twenty years or so though have seen massive condo sprawl, real estate price explosions, and general upscaling and cutesification to the point that nearly all of the town’s requisite service-sector workers commute from Salt Lake or small nearby communities that have not yet been enveloped. At least some of the elevation in the town’s esteem can be attributed to Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival, which has centered on Park City for it’s now thirty plus-year history, where Banksy’s film was set to premiere.
On foot to meet for pre-adventure drinks in downtown Salt Lake, I came across my first Banksy stencil. The same praying boy as had been spotted earlier in the week, this time slogan-free but adorned with afterthought-ish halo and wings in the same hot-pink paint of the previously attendant text.
First there was the rumor circulating in the form of the question –– “Will Banksy finally reveal himself?” –– alluding to the artist’s legendary/notorious anonymity. More than that, the question underscored the film festival’s sense of self-importance in presuming that a man who has taken pains to remain hidden from the public eye through a decade of international activity would choose this of all venues for his grand reveal. He didn’t.
Of more interest to us flyover country yokels, however, was the appearance of Bansky-esque stencils and tags in and around Salt Lake City and Park City during the week leading up to the film festival. Local social media began rumbling with potential Bansky sightings on Wednesday, January 20. On Thursday local artist of canvas and wall, Trent Call, posted a pic of a stenciled kneeling, praying boy alongside the pink-scrawled statement “forgive our trespassing”. Call adds that the work was buffed over by the next day.
The word was that Park City’s Main Street area had been hit with multiple Banksy tags. Photos of a downtown Salt Lake billboard originally advertising the billboard company itself was left with its “I guess you could say I’m in outside sales” slogan intact, but now signed for attribution with a stylized Banksy signature. It is a testament to the artist’s stature that even the stodgy, Mormon church-owned daily paper The Deseret News was on the story. So, I grabbed my camera, conscripted an accomplice, and prepared to head to Park City to see what I could find.
Park City is approximately 40 minutes and a few tax brackets away from Salt Lake up a twisty canyon stretch of I-80. Not long ago, it was a quiet rundown former mining town, home mostly to ski bums going for extra points on their prolonged adolescence. The past twenty years or so though have seen massive condo sprawl, real estate price explosions, and general upscaling and cutesification to the point that nearly all of the town’s requisite service-sector workers commute from Salt Lake or small nearby communities that have not yet been enveloped. At least some of the elevation in the town’s esteem can be attributed to Robert Redford’s Sundance Film Festival, which has centered on Park City for it’s now thirty plus-year history, where Banksy’s film was set to premiere.
On foot to meet for pre-adventure drinks in downtown Salt Lake, I came across my first Banksy stencil. The same praying boy as had been spotted earlier in the week, this time slogan-free but adorned with afterthought-ish halo and wings in the same hot-pink paint of the previously attendant text.