Mick Hartley

Ninjapirate at Metafilter has a post on Banksy, the UK’s hippest graffiti artist, with a load of links. I’m in two minds about all this – as are the commenters: check out what Flashboy has to say, especially on the Hipster Get-Out Clause.

Is this, I wonder, (on Stoke Newington Church Street) a Banksy original?

Update: Banksy’s exploits make the Times:

Banksy, the practical joker of British artists, has struck for the first time in New York, planting his works among the masterpieces hanging in four of the city’s most famous museums.

The artist embarrassed museum officials and glee in the art world this month by penetrating security at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the American Museum of Natural History.

Photographs of his exploits were posted on the website of an artists’ group called the Wooster Collective, which also published Banksy’s e-mail exchange with a reporter from The New York Times. “I went for the biggest four museums in New York, I wanted to do the Guggenheim but there weren’t enough paintings in it,” Banksy wrote. “I would have had to appear between two Picassos and I’m not good enough to get away with that.”