Best Street Artist?

Lowbrow Answer: Banksy
I have an idea. I'm going to create cool graffiti drawings and put them all over England. They're going to be anti-capitalist and have edgy messages about questioning democracy and the natural order of society. I'll decry global corporations and big business with visceral imagery.

Then I'll put it all into a book and get it published by Random House. Because that's TOTALLY anti-capitalist.

Fucking hypocrite. Don't spend your whole career preaching that art belongs to the people and then charge $30 for your book. Banksy is that artist that everyone feels cool for knowing about until you realize that EVERYONE else already knows about him. Kill yourself if you own his book. You filthy prole.


Middlebrow Answer: Julian Beever
Julian Beever is a Belgian dude who creates three dimensional sidewalk art. It's incredible. Check out some of his work here. You have to give credit to any artist who is humble enough that he creates his art in an impermanent medium. Beever's work vanishes slowly over the course of a month or so as it's exposed to the elements. Bad. Ass. If only STD's were as temporary.

While Beever's medium is awesome, his subject matter often isn't. Yes, he does renditions of old masters (highbrow), but he also does paintings of Coke bottles (lowbrow). Come on man. Don't water down your highbrow with lowbrow swill. You don't see Beethoven composing songs for Rihanna or Dostoevsky writing ads for Burger King.


Highbrow Answer: Jean-Michel Basquiat
This guy had the common decency to embody the identity of what a true artist should be: a depressed and raving lunatic with no ability to live in the real world and the victim of a young death. (he was 28) THAT is an artist. None of these fakers. I want real crazies making my art. You have any idea how insane Mozart was? Or Beethoven? See what I mean? Cut your own ear off and I'll check out your art. Otherwise, leave me alone.

Basquiat got his start spraypainting in the streets of New York. He signed all his work "SAMO," but then later started painting "SAMO IS DEAD" all over the city when he decided it was time to move on. Imagine that. An artist who doesn't put his actual name on his work, doesn't try to sell it, and then quits when he feels he has no more to give. Hmm, quitting while you're ahead. What a noble pursuit. Sombody should tell Brett Farve about it.