arabian music, traffic reports and interview with galeria 555

banksy piece - photo cropped from another blog (copyleft)

01:07:18 of detroit public radio (audio file)

00:00:00 _program on lebanese diva Fairuz (b. 1935) singing 'habibi' (my darling)

00:06:50 _sponsors support advertisements

00:07:38 _detroit traffic news

00:08:40 _general news broadcast

00:27:11 _gallery 555 interview on banski piece

00:44:51 _environmentalists in michigan on oil pipe between canada and texas


WEDT Public Radio internet broadcast (one of the few non-commercial Detroit radios)


since i arrived to detroit, there has been a series of controversial talks about the removal of a 'banksy' work from a graffiti area called 'the packard plant'.

some just say 'im really happy that this all happened! at least people are talking about art and its problematics, instead of complaining constantly on the financial crisis we are in!!'

the reflective (unfortunately, sometimes judgmental) conversations revolve around graffiti as an art form, and becoming part of the gallery system as another commodified form of art, loosing its transgressive power within society and its public sphere.

the members of gallery 555, aimed to preserve something for the city. detroit, the city where the magician Houdini died (famous by his vanishing and escapology acts), is haunted by ephemerality. everything seems to disappear... historical buildings being demolished, good people moving away.

honestly, i dont like so much the phenomena of 'banksy', from the moment that persona allowed himself to become a product of the system he explicitly criticizes.

im more curious about graffiti artists like 'space invader', that make their work actually invisible and remain truly anonymous. the viewers only see it, by looking for it, as if in a treasure hunt, where the works are on the verge of perception, physical as much as metaphysical.

PS: somewhere in the radio show, there's also a reference to the educational crisis. Jane, the wife of Dave the glassmaker, was saying the other day that two vacancies on the administrative board for education were open, and no one applied for them. everyone is too afraid of the situation where aprox. 100 million dollars have just vanished ... Houdini's ghost?