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NYC pt 2: Banksy’s Pet Store
Wednesday, November 12th, 2008
For me, one of the definite highlights of the trip to NYC was visiting The Village Petstore and Charcoal Grill, an animatronics-based non-graffiti exhibit by infamous street and guerilla artist Banksy, who also happens to be my favourite contemporary artist. (Although for the record, Tom Green did the hang-your-own-painting-in-a-big-gallery trick in Ottawa first!)
I found out about the exhibit (and that it was by Banksy, as it exists anonymously and is staffed by randoms) from Wooster Collective, whose RSS feed I really need to stay up on because I just missed them speaking in Toronto by a day. I’m really glad they were careful about spoilers and left out some of my favourite things, like the leopard. (The exhibit is closed now.)
Many people who lined up did so only because they were walking down the rather busy street it was on and saw a line of people waiting to get into what appeared to be a pet store with a leopard in the window. I heard a lot of “Uh, I think it’s an art thing?”
Some things you had to see online though, like the record of the view from the mother CCTV camera’s lens:
Unlike his first North American exhibit in LA where Banksy painted an elephant to match a magenta-and-gold wallpaper print, officially decreed illegally animal abuse, much of this exhibit had strong anti-animal exploitation themes. Banksy not only said that this was a concious flip, but that much of the money from the elephant exhibit went into funding this one.
A woman outside was handing out Go Veg For Thanksgiving pamphlets but I rejected them because I’m already vegan, I already have good Thanksgiving recipes, and our Thanksgiving had already passed anyway. I don’t think she was officially associated with the exhibit, just using the opportunity.
