At the beginning of the month, we at The Practice were keen to discover more on Banksy’s new street project, “Better Out Than In.” Today marks the end of his incredible exhibit, so just what has the elusive graffiti artist achieved? We take a took back…

We’ve had our New York team members on vigilant watch for any first glimpses of new installments, but it seems others have been just that bit too quick off the mark! Nevertheless, we’ve been watching as Banksy has produced piece after piece of inventive artwork across Manhattan and beyond. His first installation appeared near Chinatown on Tuesday, 1^st October, depicting two boys with a spray can. Simultaneously, news broke from Banksy’s Twitter and Instagram accounts that the next piece had been painted in Westside. Sure enough, on Wednesday 2^nd October, the street artist wrote on a shutter in typical graffiti style: “This is my New York Accent”, followed by the stenciling: “…normally I speak like this.” Next to follow was a classic installation debuting on 3^rd October in Midtown, of a dog urinating on a fire hydrant, which was soon given the addition of a lead and tag by a passing stranger!

Westside

Not content with just one per day, on the 4^th October, Banksy surprised us all with three pieces of art which graced the walls of Bushwick and Williamsburg in Brooklyn, and Manhattan’s Lower East Side. On the 5^th October, something surprising happened, when pictures of a New York delivery truck housing a “mobile garden” where posted on Banksy’s site. The bizarre weekend continued, with the artist posting a video depicting a “rebel rocket attack”, conveying to the public that this project was focused not only on art installations, but also and interestingly, mixed media. However by Monday, Banksy was back to his usual self, painting onto a wall in King Street, Brooklyn, a striking heart icon alongside a floating heart-shaped balloon covered in plasters. Hearts seem to be popular in Banksy’s work- back in 2009 for instance, the artist created an image of a girl with a heart-shaped balloon on a wall in Southwark, London.

Mobile Garden

Tuesday saw a piece appear in Greenpoint, comprising of the quote: “I have a theory that you can make any sentence seem profound by writing the name of a dead philosopher at the end of it. –Plato.” This was a classic example of Banksy-style wit, and what was to appear the following day also exemplified the artist’s use of graffiti for political statements. Sure enough on the 9^th October, Banksy appeared to make an attack on modern warfare with a piece in Ludlow Street showcasing charging horses wearing night vision goggles. This was painted on the side of a car and truck, accompanied by audio sounds of gun-fire, which many believe follow on from his day 6 piece, “Rebel Rocket Attack”, and highlight the ongoing Syrian conflict. On the 10^th October in East New York, Banksy revealed a painting of a beaver chewing through a street sign. For the next day’s piece, Banksy continued his “vehicle” theme with a moving slaughterhouse delivery truck containing stuffed animals. He named the piece, “Sirens of the Lambs”, and many onlookers were able to have the chance to view it as it made its way around Manhattan’s Meatpacking District.

“Sirens of the Lambs”

On the 12^th October, Banksy painted a priest inside a concrete block on Cooper St, whilst on the 13^th, he posted a YouTube video of a man selling the artist’s own signed canvases from a stall. We were gob smacked to hear that only three people bought pieces at around $60 each- (the real value has been estimated into the thousands.) The next location was Queens, which saw a piece painted of a man washing away the quote: “What we do in life echoes in Eternity.” On the 15th, a work appeared in Tribeca portraying the skyline prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which many believed was created as a tribute to those affected. To add to the piece’s sentimental nature, several floral tributes were placed around it by members of the public. The 16^th day saw Banksy create a large fiberglass statue of Ronald McDonald, accompanied by a man polishing his shoes, outside a McDonalds in the South Bronx area. Again, many believed this piece to be politically minded, as it also featured an audio file stating that it was “a critique of the heavy labour required to sustain the polished image of a multi-national corporation.

Skyline in Tribeca

On the 17^th October, Banksy beautified the outside of a Williamsburg building with the image of a Japanese bridge, women with fans and a bonsai tree. For his next piece set in Manhattan’s Chelsea on West 24th Street, the artist exhibited two works in collaboration with Brazillian street artists, Os Gemeos, of a security guard, bench and audio guide- a parody of Chelsea’s renowned art scene. On the 19^th, Banksy showcased yet another video, this time with a cryptic message behind close up shots of ants crawling in and out of a crack, followed, bizarrely, by a nude woman.

Art gallery on West 24th Street

The following day, the Upper West Side awoke to another fire hydrant image, this time accompanied by a young child. Then it was on to the South Bronx, where Banksy depicted a child spray-painting a message reading, “GHETTO 4 LIFE”, onto a wall as his butler looks on. For his next piece, entitled ‘Everything but the kitchen Sphynx’, the artist sculpted a version of the Great Sphynx, claimed to be ‘1/36’ of the scale.

“GHETTO 4 LIFE”

On the 23^rd October, Banksy posted a notice cancelling his latest post due to police activity, but on the 24^th he was back in Manhatten to create an artwork entitled, “Waiting In Vain in the Hells Kitchen.” As an early Halloween piece, the artist’s next work showed the grim reaper and a dodgem car, painted in the Soho area. On the 26^th, Banksy presented another truck scrawled with graffiti in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park. Then, on the 27^th October,^, one of the artist’s most controversial works debuted, of an unpublished op-ed he had written for the New York Times, condemning the rebuilding of the World Trade Centre building. Popular tourist spot, Coney Island was the next location, which received a stenciled robot spray painting a barcode. The following day, Banksy removed a painting from a thrift store on 23^rd Sreet and added a painting of a Nazi officer, before replacing it and captioning it- “The banality of the banality of evil.”

Coney Island

For his penultimate piece, Banksy created “Bronx Zoo”, located opposite the Yankee stadium in the Bronx. The stenciling showed a cheetah sitting on a yellow line- a popular figure used in his previous works. For his final piece located in Queens, Banksy presented a collection of balloons described on his site as, “the ubiquitous spray-painted bubble lettering”. It was a fitting piece to end on, and many have described this as a tribute given the fact that this type of graffiti first originated in New York City.

Leopard at the Yankee Stadium

And so, Banksy’s residency in New York has officially come to an end. With ups and downs, including pieces being angrily removed, eye-witness accounts of sightings threatening to unmask the artist’s identity, and police clashes, it’s been a remarkable journey for Banksy fans. Have you enjoyed following his timeline? Do you think he’s done his latest project justice? And just what will he get up to next? We’d love to hear your thoughts, so please tweet to us @PracticeDigital, and share your comments on our Facebook page.