August 5, 2005

Painting a hole in the wall.

An artist paints fool-the-eye images on the Palestinian side of the West Bank barrier. Click on the link to see the cartoony illusion of looking through the wall.

Nice painting. I simultaneously love and deplore graffiti. Banksy says he opposes the wall (except to the extent that he likes it for giving him a place to paint), but the images are on the Palestinians' side and seem to taunt them: look how much nicer things are on the other side. It's complex how the paintings are cheerful, nicely done, and dress up an otherwise blank concrete wall, but at the same time they inflame and anger as they make the viewer envy the life the Israelis enjoy.

6 comments:

Charlie Martin said...

Hmmm. He slipped a fake cave painting into the British Museum. I like this guy.

goesh said...

They need one from the other side showing arafat putting large sacks of money in a Swiss bank

goesh said...

Oh my! And here I thought I was just being clever. I better post a recipe for fried apples in the post about apples.

Freeman Hunt said...

The pictures are impressive. I like Goesh's idea for the other side.

NotClauswitz said...

I always thought it was funny/strange to see graffitti written on the Free side of the Berlin wall, "Die Mauer Muss Weg KPD/ML" (KPD/ML = Kommunist Party Deutschland/Militant League). I was young and naive and couldn't believe that they really did want the wall down - and for everybody to be communist. Workers Paradise, yeh right.

Joaquin said...

Here's Bansky!
The guy is a stencil genius!

http://www.banksy.co.uk/menu.html