Banksy’s Wednesday October 23th Today's art has been cancelled

UPDATED - Banksy’s Tuesday October 22th the Sphinx in the Bronx

 Street artist Banksy stayed another day in the Bronx,

He writes on his blog:

"No turn unstoned. A 1/36 scale replica of the great Sphinx of Giza made from smashed cinderblocks.You're advised not to drink the replica Arab spring water."

The New York post reports:

The three-foot-tall monument is standing guard outside a lot full of concrete blocks and cargo containers, its gaze fixed directly on the Mets’ Citi Field stadium about a block away.

And unlike Banksy’s other street-side works — most of which have been attacked by vandals — this one is surrounded by a 25-foot-wide moat of fetid water that’s more than an ankle deep, one of several large puddles along 127th Street.

The base of the sculpture appears to have been built from junk littering the area, with the face made of cement.

Bernardo Veles, who owns a nearby auto-glass shop, said the the masonry material was still wet when he touched it around 7 a.m.

“When I left last night, just after 9, there was nothing.  Just a big empty puddle,” said Veles, 27.

“At 6 this morning, my guys saw it and asked me what it was.  There are no marks, no truck pulled into the water.  Someone carried in the stone and built it piece by piece.”

“This place is empty at night, like a ghost town” he added.

“I am one of the last guys around and I leave at 8 or 9 every night. He must have done it in the middle of the night.”

Wikipedia tells us: `The Great Sphinx of Giza (Arabic: أبو الهول‎ Abū al Hūl, English: The Terrifying One), commonly referred to as the Sphinx, is a limestone statue of a reclining or couchant sphinx (a mythical creature with a lion's body and a human head) that stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt.'

"No turn unstoned"

"to leave no turn unstoned" is a spoonerism. A spoonerism is an error in speech, or deliberate play on words, in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched between two words in a phrase. In this case, a play on `leave no stone unturned' -(which is interesting phrase for Banksy to play with, since so many in New York are searching in all possible places for his work.)

 While spoonerisms are commonly heard as slips of the tongue resulting from unintentionally getting one's words in a tangle, they can also be used intentionally as a  a deliberate play on words.

This particular spoonerism "to leave no turn unstoned" was used by the multi-talented Irish playwrite George Bernard Shaw  who wrote "A dramatic critic is a man who leaves no turn unstoned" ( which could be reduced to "A critic is a man who leaves no turn unstoned"; meaning- critics will have something negative to say about everything).

This would be a way for Banksy to say that he understands that those critical of his work (such as Mayor Bloomberg) will be critical no matter what form his work takes.

Bloomberg commented about Banksy saying: "Art is art, and nobody's a bigger supporter of the arts than I am. I just think there are some places for art and there are some places [not for] art. And you running up to somebody’s property or public property and defacing it is not my definition of art. Or it may be art, but it should not be permitted."

UPDATE----------------------------------------------------------->

Hours after Banksy's sculpture was announced, the piece got loaded into the back of a giant moving truck, and taken away.

Banksy’s Monday October 21th South Bronx

Street artist Banksy is spending a month in New York putting up graffiti art and staging `scenes'  for his show entitled Better Out Than In. 

Banksy paid a visit to the South Bronx for today's work.

The stencil plays on what appears to be existing graffiti, which reads "Ghetto 4 Life." Banksy added a young spray-painter and his butler. This picture may be taken to be a bit of self deprecation.

Banksy has come under criticism from other graffiti artist, some whom claim that he sold out by selling his work in the `art market' where prints have sold for upwards of $500,000 at auctions (including a work titled "I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit") and original works have sold for well over a million dollars.  Many critics assume that the once poor Banksy is now rich. This has prompted anti- Banksy signs to pop up around New York:

Though other graffiti artist have added their tags to the wall after Banksy's work.

Within hours work men were photographed measuring the new Monday October 21th Banksy' picture in preparation for a plexiglass cover to protect the work.

This is the second time Banksy has struck the South Bronx. Last week Banksy's his traveling fiberglass Ronald McDonald statue, and shoe-shine boy were in the neighborhood.

Banksy’s Sunday October 20th Upper West Side New York {UPDATED}

Though initial attacks on @Banksy's work was rebuffed by onlookers- by evening it was covered in plexiglass. The some time in the night the piece was tagged with the phrase "Let the Streets Decide".

Lucky visitors on Sunday did get to `experience' the United Kingdom-based graffiti artist's work.

Banksy is spending a month in New York putting up graffiti art and staging `scenes'  for his show entitled Better Out Than In. 

While many street art enthusiasts have welcomed the graffiti art, New York city Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said he does not consider the work art and the illegal activity 'should not be permitted'. At the same time Rival graffiti artists, angered by a new presence on their 'turf', have raced to destroy the works.