Justice Monument, Clerkenwell Green

Marc: 20th Apr 2005 - 07:14 GMT

oh man from this side of the atlantic banksy seems like a dope foke hero!! keep the pics coming..

elaine: 20th Apr 2005 - 07:17 GMT

it was because I was looking for info about banksy's exploits in NY putting up the paintings in the galleries recently that I found this site

Flower: 21st Apr 2005 - 23:37 GMT

Re: Justice Monument, Clerkenwell Green

I think that Banksy is certainly an interesting guy but I am not sure that the above stunt is really terribly impressive. The words of MC Dynamite are quite frankly crass, idiotic, inaccurate and inflammanatory. It is a good thing that many of the good people working to obtain justice in the legal system don't do it for the thanks of those whose liberty they seek to uphold, but rather from an internal desire to do the right thing. A balance has to be struck between those that feel that the laws are unfairly restrictive (essentially free-thinkers, libertarians, anarchists, &c.) and the vast majority of people that want their way of life to be protected and to have a set of rules that they understand and that they can live their lives by. It is all very well to object to the current rules relating to property, liberty and the right of the state to interfere in peoples' lives but the reality of the situation is that most people are happy with these rules and if you were to replace them with the sort of principles that are espoused by the people that support their removal then the lives of the majority would be hugely damaged by the ensuing mess that such an absense of law would create. That is not to say that there is not much to be said in favour of the minority view, just that it is not possible to run a system of the scale of our current society on that set of values. I am aware that I have been ranting, and that this is not the sort of forum in which these views are necessarily terribly popular, but I really enjoy this forum and wanted to present a possibly alternative viewpoint.

Flower: 21st Apr 2005 - 23:44 GMT

On an entirely different point: the above state is not a replica of that which stands on top of the Royal Courts Of Justice (RCJ). The RCJ is a civil court, and also the home of the Court of Appeal. There is no statue on top of the RCJ, although there are a couple of spires. The statue that is being parodied is in fact the statue of "justice" that sits atop the Central Criminal Court, generally known as the Old Bailey.

jeeff: 22nd Apr 2005 - 00:57 GMT

i agree that mc dynamite's little speech seems a bit ridiculous. even the statue kind of lacks the sly sense of humour that makes most of banksy's work so great. i guess getting personally involved sours things a bit.

but i do think that graffiti/public art plays an important role - not in calling for society's collapse, but simply in making people stop & think. i seriously doubt that most graffiti artists have a hardline ideological stance. at their best, people like banksy are the merry pranksters and shit disturbers that get us to pull our heads out of our asses once in a while. and in that way it promotes the idea of soft change, change by degrees, on an individual level. i think that's a good idea.

Marc: 22nd Apr 2005 - 02:11 GMT

we don't need anarchy to work on a global scale- it's a local scale moral compass at this point- i agree with the need to balance society but also would like to point out that at least 2million other british subjects don't want an imperialist war in iraq, either.. one issue at a time, and that seems to be a pretty important one with a real effect on peoples' lives. so the anti-war movement does encourage a sort of balance, that of expressing opinions, and indeed a large number of imperialist invasions are in fact illegal, so protestors are sometimes demanding justice.

wonderlane: 4th Jul 2005 - 17:54 GMT

Love the art, not sure how well it relates to Kevin Callan, however, I would never have read about his suffering unless I had viewed that image.

Thank you,
Wonderlane
From Seattle