· 20 underground artists set up shop on Oxford Street
· 'Affordable' works at Santa's Ghetto
Mark Brown, arts correspondent
Friday December 1, 2006
The Guardian
It used to be a Clarks shoeshop, though the stabbed teddy bear with a kitchen knife still dangling from its stomach in the window should give away its change of occupancy. Inside, the only shoes you will find are on the feet of bodies which look real but are models. One appears to have put his head through a wall.
This is Santa's Ghetto, a gallery and amusement arcade founded by the elusive graffiti artist Banksy, which opens for 23 days in London's West End to show art as well as selling affordable works.
"I felt the spirit of Christmas was being lost," said Banksy (real name possibly Robin Banks or Robert Banks, or possibly neither). "It was becoming increasingly uncommercialised and more and more to do with religion so we decided to open our own shop and sell pointless stuff you didn't need."
Inside is an entertaining mixed bag of work from about 20 underground artists which might make battling the Oxford Street throngs a touch more bearable, although following the instructions on one of Ben Turnbull's Break In The Case Of Emergency boxes may not be advisable. A handgun is inside.
Banksy's work is spottable. In one big painting depicting the wicked witch and Hansel and Gretel, the witch has been replaced by singer Michael Jackson trying to entice the children with a candy walking stick.
Rather ostentatiously, there are two Mona Lisas. One has Marge Simpson's towered blue hair and the other is showing her backside. Other works have a Hello Kitty influence, although if you look long enough you will notice the sweet girl holding the kitten is also holding a hand grenade.
Kelsey Brookes is described by the gallery as a west coast surfer and panda painter and in real life he does indeed have the blond, blue-eyed, tanned look of someone about to run into the warm Pacific. "I was involved last year and it's something you look forward to," said Brookes, over from San Diego for two weeks. "It seems like a gallery that's done by the artists, there's not a heavy galleryist's hand here."
The aim is to be affordable and it's possible to buy screen prints from £35 up to £500. Or you could spend a lot more. One work already sold is Emma Heron's vend-a-limb machine, which has a black child with his leg blown off looking longingly inside.
Why not have a go at throwing hoops at religious iconography? If you get all three, including one over a rotating Virgin Mary, you will win a Gorillaz cuddly toy.
The religious theme continues in a darkened TV room where you can sit on a dirty sofa and watch video art, such as two doodled men on a cross discussing the "son of whatshisname."
The Santa's Ghetto "squat art concept store" began five years ago and has been in various locations around London, though this is the first time it has alighted on Oxford Street, right next door to Tottenham Court Road tube station.
Banksy himself goes from strength to strength and you would have to be particularly well-heeled to call his work affordable these days. Earlier this year it was revealed that Christina Aguilera had paid £25,000 for three of his works, including a pornographic picture of Queen Victoria in a lesbian pose with a prostitute.
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