Update on the potential Banksy artwork reported on last year

About this time last year there was a news story on Global TV about a piece of graffiti that was located on the south side of the Bow River, under the C-Train bridge on the NW line. In that news story, it was speculated that this was a work by Banksy, or alternatively in the manner of Banksy.

I also reported on it in a blog posting about a month later. By that time, it was already painted over. On a related note, about a month ago there was a front-page news story about a certain anonymous “Dr. G.”. According to this story, it claims that he calls the City’s 311 service to make approximately 7800 complaints about graffiti ANNUALLY. Wrap your head around this; he calls the 311 service almost once an hour, 356 days of the year (or every 66 minutes) to complain about graffiti.

Do we have “Dr. G.” to thank that this artwork was covered in a timely manner?

This is a follow up story to that blog posting.

In my sleuthing related to my research focus of art institutions and art spaces in Calgary during the past 100 years, I stumbled across a website which I believe to be that of the artist who did this artwork. From what best I can speculate, the artist who did this work would appear to be based out of Vancouver, British Columbia. Although it is possible that he/she may still have some form of Calgary connection.

The image above is a screen capture of the work that was depicted in the Global TV news story. I was able to find the artist’s website a couple days ago, and it is from there that I was able to copy the image.

There is nothing more to add, except to put the speculation of who did it to bed. We now know with certainty that it was NOT a work by Banksy.

David Brunning’s Art Central mural

It has been a week since the external demolition of Art Central began.

I figure it is as good of a time as any to talk about the mural that was commissioned by Art Central (or Encorp on behalf of Art Central) for one of the exterior walls. It has been there since the opening of Art Central in 2005.

Although the exterior wall that this is painted on has not come down yet, I assume that it will be coming down shortly as seen by the photo above.

The artist for the mural was David Brunning (a.k.a. The Kid Belo). He is one of the better known local graffiti artists. Much of his work tends to be more mural-based which is unusual for Calgary.

This mural tended to get a fair bit of attention as it was a common backdrop for fashion photography. The contrast between the grittiness of graffiti with modern fashion obviously is appealing for many photographers and/or graphic designers.

Sadly there is not much graffiti murals around in the city.

As a result, I figured it is probably a good thing to record this now, instead of later, when it will be mostly landfill – probably by the end of the week.