What People Are Saying About Banksy

"We were flattered Banksy tagged on our Ad--it was epic!" --This is a quote from a representative of The Light Group, the company that owned the sign that had the Banksy 'Livin the Dream' piece put on it.

And just like a spokesman from the billboard company that was defaced says he was flattered by the vandalism, people have been saying some really interesting things about the new Banksy pieces in LA.

This post grabs a bunch of people's comments to put out there for discussion. Most are taken from the MELROSEandFAIRFAX exclusive on the Huffington Post. Click the jump to read more, and add your voice to the comments!


He's brilliant. If you don't appreciate his work, well, then you just aren't brilliant. -Chef Dracula on Huffington Post

Jesus! Give us one day to get there and take a picture so we can save it personally! Anonymous on M&F

Though the hype is ridiculous­, there is a good reason behind it. It speaks to us and it (and we) should convey the message to authority. It's interestin­g though that most of the people who buy his art are probably contributi­ng to the disparitie­s and situations he is depicting. -Dr. Zanzibar on Huffington Post

Sucks theyre gonna remove it. If i was there id spray paint over it in a "If we all cant have it you cant either" attitude. Anonymous on M&F

I was honestly gonna fly out this weekend just to see, and take photos of what he's done out there this past week. Sucks that Charlie Brown got covered up. Alizzo on M&F

I was over there while they were taking it down. It got pretty intense between the middle aged guy who owns the property the billboard resides on and the big dude who worked for CBS- Biz on M&F

It's clever and cute, but graffiti is still vandalism.-Ramirez on Huffington Post

Ima fuck it - anonymous on M&F

Next time please have someone who actually has the intellectual chops to understand art before writing such a disgrace of a post: "Each piece of art is not just the image itelf, it incorporates an idea." That's sort of the idea of...art. "And on this new piece in LA, we see Banksy demonstrating how a street artist fights his battles, replacing crayons in place of bullets." Um, no. See the other comment. It's not about the plight of the street artist. Shakin' my head at this elementary foolishness. -Bjorn on M&F

The level of the comments here are depressing­.
Envy, confusion, fear, adulation, politics, racism, elitism.
I would say on some level Banksy succeeds yet again, because art, if anything, is a way to define what it is to be human. -Forester on Huffington Post

Well i´ve never seen or heard anything from this guy till now but i think i´m now going to look for some of his work. The artwork is just amazing. - Markus Schmid on Huffington Post

What are your thoughts?

Jerry Brown Threatened in Orange County- Quit Giving Graffiti a Bad Name!

Some asshole with a spray can and a limited spelling vocabulary has written some threatening messages in Orange County towards California Governor Jerry Brown, and nearly every minority group one can think of.

We are just as pissed as anyone and hope this asshole gets caught-too often any thing sprayed gets classified as 'graffiti' and he's giving graffiti writers a bad name. Furthermore, this isn't even graffiti because the hack didn't sign a name . . .

The police are reportedly taking this threat against the Governor seriously-perhaps more than necessary, and have determined it a terrorist threat.

Interesting that even though the vandal-and this person is nothing but that- issued threats against Blacks, the Chinese, Catholics and more, it is only the threat against the Governor that is being treated most seriously. We highly doubt this person who can't spell could organize anything well enough to successfully harm the Governor, but the minority groups are much more real targets, even if the police don't treat it that way.

But most of all, it pains us whenever something like this gets a lot of publicity. Most people just clump anything with a spray can as graffiti-and think that all graffiti is gang related. Blogs like MELROSEandFAIRFAX are trying to push artistic mediums like graffiti and street art and enhance public perception, and we feel that fiascos like this give real graffiti a bad name.

Real graffiti has nothing to do with this hate speech or gangs. Real graffiti is about artistic expression and getting up. The biggest crime involved is the re-attribution of space, and unlike any other crime in the world, a graffiti artist will take nothing and leave their name at the scene of the crime.

This is not graffiti, but just some spray-can vandalism by a bigoted simpleton.

Quit giving graffiti a bad name!