Banksy, BP, Boycotts

The street artist known as Banksy, already ludicrously famous, is having a heck of a summer, thanks largely to the release of his film Exit Through the Gift Shop. Perhaps because of the success of that film, the notoriously shadowy artist is starting to step out into the public eye. 

Last week, he put up a video on his website that showed someone -- whom some speculate was Banksy himself -- heckling Prince Charles as the heir to the British throne was leaving the Glastonbury festival. He also put up a short video, called "Pier Pressure", showing a young girl down on the Brighton Pier riding a dolphin that was stuck in a net as it tried to jump a barrel of BP oil:

And then over the weekend, the Sun ran what it said was the first ever lengthy interview with Banksy. 

What strikes me about the interview (and other statements he's made over the years) is the contrast between the almost completely apolitical manner in which he frames his art, and the somewhat cheap political points he is occasionally inclined to score in his work (such as in the pointless dolphin video above). 

What seems to drive Banksy's work is the playfulness of street art and the use of stencils to poke fun at authorities and official society. He never seems to descend into the seriousness of high politics that too many insecure artists fall into when they want to be taken seriously. For instance, here he is explaining his decision to stage a show in Los Angeles:

 "I guess I fancied going somewhere a little bit warmer. So we ended up in Los Angeles and, yer know, it's this really glamorous town that also has this dirty side to it. But... above anything else it's the easiest place in the world to rent an elephant." 

But now he seems to be on a bit of an environmental kick, in which case, it's too bad. It isn't that art and politics should not mix, but just that art -- especially the type of art Banksy makes -- does not lend itself to the nuances and complexities  environmental politics. For example, should we boycott BP? It's not obvious that it's a useful thing. 

Is BP responsible for the mess in the gulf? Yes, in some ways. But as Chris MacDonald has argued, it's complicated. Is a boycott the best way of punishing BP? Well, it depends. First off, what are your alternatives? If you're going to get picky about where your oil comes from, you're going to find that it's a matter of choosing the devil with whom you want to dance. Also, as many people have repeatedly pointed out, BP doesn't even own most of the "BP" retail gas stations, and many of those stations don't even sell exclusively BP gasoline. So all you are doing is hurting independent small business people.  Finally, BP makes everything from airline fuel to plastics to solar panels. Are you going to boycott all of those products too?

You could do all of this, and maybe that's the message Banksy wants you to take away. But it would be a shame to see a great artist reduced to pandering to the worst instincts of the stunt-environmentalists and the anti-corporate left.