The Art of the Brick

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art referees

inCoMPlete

Incomplete was one in a series of pieces I made

for a small exhibition in Florida toward the end

of 2013. They were all explorations of the human

form; there was one sitting cross-legged like a

Buddha, and another on all fours with a great

empty hole in his torso.

Before the show, I had a crazy few weeks; I was

running behind schedule as usual. While I was

working, the British graffiti artist Banksy came to

New York and was conducting his self-appointed

residency of the city, called Better Out Than In.

I’d always liked the way Banksy brought his art

to people in a completely different way, and

especially the trail of flummoxed authorities

and art commentators he left behind. Banksy

unveiled a new event every day, including one

inwhich he set up a small stall in Central Park

and sold original pieces for $60 each.

You don’t notice the referee during the game unless

he makes a bad call. —Drew Curtis

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One lucky (or insightful) customer bought a few

and was no doubt delighted to discover that

they were worth about $100,000 each. But it was

the street art, the large-scale pieces painted on

buildings and in alleys, that garnered the most

attention. By the middle of the month, New York

Mayor Michael Bloomberg was so infuriated that

he announced that any Banksy work discovered

on city property would be destroyed. “You

running up to somebody’s property and defacing

it is not my definition of art,” Bloomberg said.

That set me off. My philosophy is that there are

no rules to art. And I really, really hate it when

people say, “This is art and that is not art.” It’s the

most tired conversation of all time.

What is art? I base my opinion on intention: if you

want it to be, it is. I’ve had years of people telling

me that what I do is not art. Or that the way I do

it is not art. People even tell me the fact that I’m

gluing bricks is breaking a rule, because LEGO

bricks are supposed to hold together with friction

alone; if you glue it together, that’s cheating. How

can it be cheating? There are no referees in art.

At my exhibitions, I have an area where kids can

build with bricks: who’s to say that what they are

doing is not art?

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