Bansky in NYC Day 29: Vandalized Painting with Nazi Officer in Housing Works on 23rd Street

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For Banksy’s third to last day of his residency, he’s taken a painting from Housing Works, added a Nazi officer who’s gazing at an idealized landscape in the Hudson River School style, and re-donated it back to the thrift store with his signature. He’s calling it “The banality of the banality of evil.” This itself is comes from the subtitle of the book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt. Here’s a New York Observer piece from 1999 about the staying power of the phrase.

Within 30 minutes, Housing Works had taken it down from the window to ready it for auction. If you know Banksy’s book Wall and Piece you’ll know that he likes to play this line between fine art and street art, with an entire series dedicated to putting up fake works in museums (and seeing how long before the museum notices). One “cave painting” sample showing a man with a shopping cart in the “Post Catatonic era” got added to the permanent collection of the British Museum after museum officials found it.

Previous Banksy pieces in “Better Out Than In”:

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The Gingerbread House in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn

Take Home a Piece of the NYC Subway from the MTA Pop-Up Shop

See Wildlife and Abandoned Islands on an NYC River Cruise

Bansky in NYC Day 29: Vandalized Painting with Nazi Officer in Housing Works on 23rd Street

Michelle Young