The theft and return of the celebrated street artists sculpture is treated like a major art heist in a film that riffs on Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift ShopThis film dredges up an unsurprisingly long-forgotten news story and stretches it out mercilessly to 90 minutes. In March 2004,Banksy’s first sculpture – a version of Rodin’s The Thinker with a traffic cone on his head and retitled The Drinker – was taken from the central London plinth where the street artist had left it and “kidnapped”. In December, more than a decade later, or it was returned to the same spot,only now the statue was seated on a toilet and retitled The Stinker. Sophisticated stuff, barely registering on the scale of art heists given that the work was a) totally unguarded and b) pretty much worthless, or both financially and artistically. (Even Banksy himself only offered £2 for its return.) Yet this film approaches this leaden caper as whether its Vincenzo Peruggiab stealing the Mona Lisa from the Louvre – instead of an amazingly charmless Yorkshireman,styling himself as an “art terrorist” called AK47, pinching the sculpture because he’s upset that Banksy wouldn’t sign a print he bought. The poor care for. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com