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Video: Street Artist Hanksy Reflects On His "Silly" Art
By
Ben Yakas
Published Dec 2, 2012
Modified Dec 2, 2012
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Dec 2, 2012
Modified Dec 2, 2012
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Lately, everyone's favorite Banksy-aping street artist Hanksy has been branching out into non-Tom Hanks territory with odes to many pop cultures figures of past and present, including Ted Danson, the Huxtable family, and Ryan Gosling. Keith Haskel got the chance to accompany him while he put up two pieces in Little Italy (on Aziz Ansari/Iron Man and Jim Gaffigan), and created a mini-doc about him. It turns out that Hanksy just wants to make people happy: "Maybe one day I will be a little more serious...but right now I just want to make myself and other people laugh," Hanksy said. "It's so stupid, and that's why people fucking hate me. Clearly it's so asinine...People ask me 'why?' Why not!"
Or as Hanksy himself referred to the video: "Watch me put up street fart and listen while I talk in a super funny distorted voice." Hanksy was creating these pieces for The Art of Comedy's installation as part of the NY Comedy Festival, so he had a permit to work that night. But as Haskel told us: "He did ask that I blur his face and morph his voice, as his pieces normally aren't legal."
For more Hanksy, check out this long interview with Time Out New York, in which he talks about getting getting shoutouts from the real Tom Hanks: "Every time something like that happens I just smile and go, That’s so cool, shit like that can happen to normal people from the Midwest like myself. It’s a really flattering—and odd—experience."
Tagged
graffiti
hanksy
keith haskel
little italy
manhattan
street art
original
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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