Hasta La Ideas

Now that 2010 made Banksy a household name, between the artist guest directing the intro to The Simpsons and his film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, recently landing itself in Academy Award contention in the documentary category, items surrounding the notoriously secretive artist will undoubtedly both receive more attention and more scrutiny. Related to the Academy nod, a massive piece of street art has just recently shown up on the side of a building in Los Angeles, depicting a hooded Banksy as the Oscar award, surrounded by Star Wars Storm Troopers. While Exit certainly seems the front-runner for the win, is the piece a publicity push to help the movie along toward the finish line (let’s not forget that the artist made some publicity-friendly pieces at the Sundance premiere of the film last year)? Is it Banksy himself poking fun at his newly-found Hollywood fortunes? Or the work of the copycat villain of the film, Mr. Brainwash/Thierry Guetta (who might also be fake)? According to Movieline, it seems that most who have seen the mural believe that it’s the latter, who’s really ever to know when it comes to Banksy? The guy is the British James Franco.

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