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I think it's a reasonable statue. But does anyone else think it's a bit obvious, more so than his other work? Like there is no doubt on the meaning at all, it'
by forgotusername6 6mo ago
I think it's a reasonable statue. But does anyone else think it's a bit obvious, more so than his other work? Like there is no doubt on the meaning at all, it's all right there on the surface level.
- LightBug1 6mo agoHe's always been one to land a one-liner, or just a punch line. Sadly, in this day and age, that simple one-punch obvious meaning is just what's needed.
- kibwen 6mo ago[dead]
- zeroonetwothree 6mo agoYes doesn’t feel very innovative
- vscode-rest 6mo agoDo know know of any “prior art”, so to speak?
- wand3r 6mo agoCertainly in America but all over the west, people are significantly less capable of media literacy. Sometimes the obvious needs to be said.
- mindslight 6mo agoWell the problems it's referencing are glaringly obvious as well, and yet so many people still refuse to acknowledge them.
- thinkingemote 6mo agoit gets people talking which many of those who like it consider to be the primary point. In other words, it's not great public art, it's basically government approved engagement bait or engineered pro-establishment viral messaging and it's very successful at that! (but it doesn't inspire and elevate that art should aspire to)
- nickthegreek 6mo ago> engineered pro-establishment viral messaging I don’t understand this. What speaks pro-establishment in this piece?
- teekert 6mo agoIf one can read this as pro-establishment, it's proof that the the art is indeed not so obvious as suggested above :)
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- pirate787 6mo agoIn the UK the establishment is generally unsettled by the display of the English flag. https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/29/uk/st-george-flag-england-meaning-intl https://edition.cnn.com/2025/08/29/uk/st-george-flag-england...
- overfeed 6mo agoRegional chauvinism is never good for a healthy union. Even if it were the Union Jack, flag-shaggers are almost always blood and soil zealots.
- chroma 6mo agoI think a small level of it is fine. It’s like sports teams. You can be a Giants fan and I can be a Yankees fan, and we’ll bicker & make fun of each other for supporting a different team. But we can still work together & be civil when it comes to lots of other stuff.
- tbrownaw 6mo ago> there is no doubt on the meaning at all Which flag? Or, what kind of flag? Or does it matter?
- wartywhoa23 6mo agoIt is universal. The flag, the state, the man. Details don't matter.
- ignoramous 6mo agoIn the context of UK politics, and given Banksy's previous socio-political work, this statue is probably a response to 'the nationalists': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Raise_the_Colours https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Raise_the_Colours
- 21asdffdsa12 6mo agoWhich are not very nationalists nowadays. Its mostly "we want to keep western values and culture".. which now is high treason i guess..
- notahacker 6mo agoIt's mostly about dismissing most of modern Western culture as "woke nonsense" whilst demonstrating fealty to the idea of it by showing they hate foreign cultures even more...
- MattGaiser 6mo agoFlags overwhelmingly represent nations, groups considering themselves nations, that were nations or have some kind of individual governmental status. If you asked 100 people to imagine a particular flag to attach to that statue, 95% of them are going to be current, unrecognized, or former states.
- blitzar 6mo agothe kind that flag shaggers shag
- tene80i 6mo agoNot sure we think of Banksy as being particularly subtle. Innovative and impactful, sure - but the message is usually quite clear, no?
- morkalork 6mo agoIt's always been about as subtle as a sledge hammer
- EGreg 6mo agoHe started with literally graffiti. So sure - not subtle!!
- filoleg 6mo agoNot gonna lie, I am not sure how the choice of medium here (graffiti) has anything to do with how subtle (or not) the message of an art piece is.
- morkalork 6mo agoThere's a well known theory on this exact concept! The Medium is the Message. Or, the very act of defacing a public building is meant to sledge-hammer the artist's work into the viewer's consciousness. Compared to say, some quiet exhibit most people would never encounter.
- econ 6mo agoYou are not supposed to get any attention and you are not supposed to have any say in how the city and the world looks. If you buy the building you still don't get to paint. To deface it would first have to have a face.
- ares623 6mo agoOur first exposure to Banksy was when we were hitting puberty. We probably thought they were subtle back then.
- Jtarii 6mo agoI think a good old fashined "we are all fucked" is warranted now and again. It's also referencing the recent flag controversies in the UK over the past year.
- tialaramex 6mo agoI don't think most of his work is trying for subtle? First thing that came to mind: "Slave Labour" is pretty obvious, it's a kid operating a sewing machine to make Union flags and it was painted on an actual pound shop. Were you unsure of the message? Even something like "Silent Majority" isn't difficult, the comic book "V for Vendetta" makes the exact same point just Banksy painted it as a mural.
- ChoGGi 6mo agoPound shop == dollar store I suppose I should've figured that one out.
- blitzar 6mo agoIts because we have the metric system over here
- pjc50 6mo agoAmericans manage a further level of confusion by referring to the "pound sign" as #, rather than £, which isn't in US-ASCII nor on the US-102 keyboard layout.
- blitzar 6mo agoYou have to go to Amsterdam for the hash shop
- tialaramex 6mo agoGood point, historically British currency wasn't decimal. "Decimal Day" in which the pound was divided into 100 new pennies happened just a few years before I was born. So I grew up with the physical coins often still denominated in shillings or old (pre-decimal) pence, but knowing (since it was true from before I'd been born) what their actual value was in the only currency system I had ever experienced, so e.g. I see a shilling, I know it's actually 5 new pence. By the time I was a teenager there were very few actual shillings in circulation and lots of new 5p coins and then the coins were deliberately reduced in size anyway, obviously if you still had a shilling it was now obsolete because it was the wrong size. My mother grew up with the currency around her not being decimal but by her teens the government were explicitly warning that this was coming and she learned that e.g. a pound has 100 new pence in school ready for a career where this would soon go from theory to practice, when she finished school the poster campaigns were running IIRC.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- dahdum 6mo ago[dead]
- twoodfin 6mo agoI have the same reaction to Banksy, and figure he and his audience just have to be in on the joke? I can’t discount there’s some layered irony going on in conversation between the artist and the intellectual / capitalist / trend-setting elite that are his effective patrons. “I remember when all this was trees” [1] is maybe the best example. Detroit hasn’t been “trees” in something like two centuries. Platitudes doused in treacle. [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/10/01/banksy-mural-detroit-michigan-auction/73135144/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/10/01/ba...
- defrost 6mo agoA better example of a knowing joke between artist and establishment would be the auction of a Banksy work on paper poised above and within the jaws of a paper shredder .. that was then half shredded on the fall of the hammer and sale. For clarity, the shredder was part of the work and the sale was of the half destroyed piece along with shredder and chaff.
- toraway 6mo agoConsidering that line is supposed to be written by a young child in-context (who couldn't actually "remember" anything more than a decade earlier, I'm pretty confident the intent was not to reference the actual recent history of urban deforestation in Detroit. So this attempt to fact-check the art doesn't actually work at all here. Off the top of my head, I'd guess the message is closer to an observation about being disconnected from history in the modern world leading to vaguely defined feelings of angst and alienation.
- seydor 6mo agoit's less than mediocre art. Using the following statue from Temu for vandalism would be a stronger art statement: https://www.temu.com/1pc-3d-printed-bride-sculpture-elegant-gothic-wedding-decoration-with-flowing-white-long-dress-and-veil-durable-plastic-spooky-ornament-suitable-for-home-office-desktop-battery-free-halloween-decoration-and-year-round-display-unique-holiday-g-601103043770894.html https://www.temu.com/1pc-3d-printed-bride-sculpture-elegant-...
- lukebechtel 6mo ago[dead]
- ungreased0675 6mo agoThis one definitely lacks ambition compared to other works. Probably because his other work had a subversive undertone, this one seems sponsored by the powers that be. I also suspect it was installed with cooperation from the local authorities.
- BoggleOhYeah 6mo agoThe “powers that be” hate ideology?
- fooqux 6mo agoI think you took a wildly different interpretation of this art than I did.
- ungreased0675 6mo agoIt’s not the art itself in a vacuum. If you’re familiar with British politics right now, especially around flags, it provides important context.
- EMM_386 6mo ago> "in September 2025, Banksy painted a mural on the Royal Courts of Justice depicting a judge bludgeoning a protester with a gavel" His other works aren't subtle.
- BoggleOhYeah 6mo agoHave you seen the state of the world? Why would you go through the trouble of being subtle nowadays?
- hn_throwaway_99 6mo agoStrong disagree. First, like many of the other comments mention, Banksy is known for being clever and witty, but not particularly subtle. But more to the point, while you may think the meaning is a bit obvious, the fact that the flag is unadorned (which/whose flag is it?), and the man is unknown, makes me think this statue could be the ultimate Rorschach test. I'm sure there are tons of people thinking "Ha ha, this is the perfect commentary on all those idiot <people on the other side who I disagree with> wrapping themselves up in their ideology of <patriotism/social justice/cause du jour> as they march <some particular country/society/the world at large off a cliff>". In other words, I'm guessing you probably felt the meaning was "obvious" because you filled in the blanks in the above madlibs-style statement in a way that feels obvious to you, and I think folks on "the other side" would probably fill in the blanks with the exact opposite notions in a way that feels "obvious" to them.
- squigz 6mo agoThe ambiguity - that this could apply to anyone, that people are so caught up in their belief of choice - is part of the obviousness, at least to me. I would expect more people to be aware of this, than to actually believe that it's talking about, say, Americans in particular.
- usefulcat 6mo agoI do agree that it’s obvious in the way that you describe. But I still think it’s a point worth making—that it could apply to anyone. Because I don’t think that thought is likely to occur to a lot of people, regardless of their particular belief of choice. And that is a problem.
- vkou 6mo ago> But I still think it’s a point worth making—that it could apply to anyone. ... anyone who engages in this behaviour, yes. Not anyone nor everyone does.
- anon373839 6mo agoOne can’t say that proposition is obvious to the population at large. Else, “we” (as in Earth in 2026) would have very political dynamics. So maybe Banksy felt inclined to do a public service announcement.
- kiney 6mo agoall his work is slop. No difference here...
- aaron695 6mo ago[dead]
- hristov 6mo agoIf you want to make a political message it often helps to be obvious. This way the meaning of your message will not be misinterpreted either intentionally or un-intentionally.
- at-fates-hands 6mo agoHis messages were always the same politically. He was always snubbing his nose at the crown, at the art world and other rich folks who would pay millions of pounds for his art. Back in the day when I discovered him, he came off as a rebel, as most graffiti writers do. Now? He makes millions off his work while still thumbing his nose at capitalism? Doesn't ring the same any more. You can't claim to be fighting against the same system that you use to make millions.
- solenoid0937 6mo ago> You can't claim to be fighting against the same system that you use to make millions. You absolutely can though. This is a false dichotomy.
- moogly 6mo agoIf you're rich, you can't slag off your ilk because that makes you a hypocrite, and if you're poor, you're just envious. And if you're threading the narrow path inbetween, well that just makes you bourgie so in summary: get fucked. Convenient. Of course, this only works in one direction...
- NekkoDroid 6mo ago> You can't claim to be fighting against the same system that you use to make millions. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-somewhat https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som... There really is no winning when you become famous. When people liked you before and you are effectively still the same but just richer they call you part of the problem, if you aren't richer people just don't know you and you most likely arent actually famous. Usually money follows the fame and vice versa (unless you specifically use your money to remain anonymous).
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- pibaker 6mo agoHave you seen his other works in recent years? It's hard to get any more obvious than a judge beating up someone with his gavel or a boy judo throwing Putin. It's not like Banksy is known for being a sophisticated highfalutin MFA student anyway. Like it or not, appealing to the masses with simple and clear moral messages has always been his deal.
- kimixa 6mo agoI think the sheer number of people below arguing it might not be about nationalism shows this sort of "Obvious" direct work may still be needed.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6mo ago> I think the sheer number of people below arguing That says more about "the people below" on HN to me. There's a strong strand of contrarian, pseudo-intellectual sophistry. I.e. it's "clever" to talk yourself out of seeing the obvious.
- nutjob2 6mo agoThe best art makes you think and/or feel, and engage with it in a personal way. There's nothing about subtly in that claim, and all forms of art are equally valid, if not the same quality. Bansky's art has always been blunt and whimsical, probably because he makes popular street art. It's meant to be "accessible" for your average passerby who might only engage with it for a fraction of a second, but maybe get a little surprise when they do.
- prawn 6mo agoMaybe more that it's an obvious idea than an obvious message?
- testdelacc1 6mo agoIn what world is Banksy supposed to be subtle? Did you look at his artwork of a judge hitting a protestor with a gavel while the protestor was bleeding on the ground and think “huh, I wonder what this means” (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2z30p033ro https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2z30p033ro). By those standards a man wrapped in the flag walking off the edge is the height of subtlety. I guarantee you this - none of the people it should be offending will realise he’s talking about them.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- TiredOfLife 6mo ago> But does anyone else think it's a bit obvious, more so than his other work I have no idea what it is supposed to mean.
- finnthehuman 6mo agoI appreciate that it allows people to engage with and discuss the work without immediately feeling boxed out by pretentious poppycock. I also think obviousness is overindexed as the indicator of bad art because it's often the easiest property to articulate about something thoroughly bad. A lot of the tv and movies that make me quote the robot devil ("You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!") would not be improved by making the characters subtler. They could be the same level, or even more forthcoming, if the writing sounded like natural conversations real people have.
- some_random 6mo agoBanksy's whole thing is obvious, faux-brave work. Didn't you know war bad?
- wat10000 6mo agoYou're talking about a man who did a Simpsons intro that depicted the Simpsons behind the scenes as involving child labor, kittens thrown into a woodchipper, an enslaved panda, and various other atrocities, all in a dark compound with guard towers surrounded by barbed wire. Banksy is sometimes interesting but he and subtle don't belong on the same planet.
- MisterTea 6mo agoDo we stop talking about the Jewish holocaust because, well isn't it obvious that genocide is bad? If we don't remind ourselves of these situations to be aware of we can easily get mired in our daily lives and forget these important matters. It becomes easy to ignore. Especially if the bad stuff does not effect you. If one becomes complacent, one becomes part of the problem in the hope the problem won't come after them. This same thing goes for anything that needs to stick whether its programming, therapy, or playing a musical instrument. The more you practice something the more it sticks.