This past Wednesday I ventured into Manhattan to see a Banksy piece that I saw on the news this week. I was originally going to go to the Guggenheim to see Roy Lichtenstein, but when I saw a Banksy piece featured on the news channel I was watching while waiting for my car to be repaired, I took it as a sign. Unfortunately, when I tried to upload the image of the piece I saw, I got the error message pictured above :(. The piece that I had seen was on W 79th St. between Amsterdam & Broadway. Fortunately, the owner of the building Banksy’s piece was painted on had sense to put a piece of Plexiglass over his creation to prevent it from becoming vandalized. The spray painting was a stencil of a small boy with a sledgehammer in hand about to break open the the pipe which was on the building. Although it wasn’t one of my personal favorites of Banksy’s, I did appreciate seeing it in person. I thought that finding this art would be more difficult but it was about 10 feet away from the subway station that I exited from and I could immediately see it because of the crowd of photographers, newscasters, and plain, old observers standing right in front of the building’s side wall. One question that I desperately want to know the answer to is why is Banksy so much more popular and praised than other graffiti artists? I understand that he has a reputation for doing more than just graffiti on buildings, but some of his pieces aren’t so special, just like the one I saw on Wednesday. I guess it all depends on who views the art and which viewers like it or dislike it. One thing that I commend Banksy for doing is his current art selling project. It’s nice that he’s selling pieces of his artwork for dirt-cheap prices because it allows people who typically can’t afford famous artists’ work the chance to own something prestigious of their own.