Moniker Urban Art Fair London (10/14-10/17/10)

"This fall, the MONIKER International Art Fair introduces to London a welcome alternative to the familiar grind of the art fair season. Breaking from the traditional format, Moniker highlights the work of a generation of artists often overlooked in British mainstream fairs, though widely acclaimed by museums and established art institutions throughout the world. These artists, extensively collected transcend various genres, readily exploring high and low aspects of visual language. Moniker expertly brings together a select roster from some of the world’s leading artists and galleries, combining forces to showcase their progressive and challenging work in the modern art market. Moniker is designed to spotlight this movement within the ever-growing London art scene and its prominence within current international artistic trends in an innovative setting for art fans, collectors and critics alike "

We very much look forward to Banksy Forum Members attending the event. Opening/Program Times we be available on the website very soon.

ESPO...





EINE..



Inside Moniker...

sorry.. didnt see the other, did look (guess not very well)

LBP was planning on participating, but its the same weekend as our opening for the SugiPOP! show here in New Hampshire. The organizers of Moniker are great and I am sure it will be an amazing fair...

haha thats me stood in front of the espo... with the grey jumper

good to meet you there cash.

I thought the project area was the highlight with Eine and Polly Morgan being particularly good. Interesting that DFace has done another Superman for the print release. I was tempted by the OG but I think her indoors wont take another skull on the wall. I do wonder whether its a step back as well, as nice as the image is.

the more i think about the fair and what it presented, the harder i struggle with it.
undoubtedly they put together a well organised event, and the opening had a good atmosphere, but i'm kind of struggling with elements of it - so much secondary market work was shown in an obvious attempt to cash in on the uk market who don't regularly see mcgee and kaws etc.
my biggest gripes though were the polly morgan and eine booths with recreated - and very false - studio / street environments. whilst i like ben a lot, his recreated street scene was a bit sad to see.
you can see his shutter and font works on just about any east london wall right now, with 3 large walls either on in within spitting distance of the moniker location. his opposing wall of new sign-written pieces was great though (read; real).

i think i've not got over the fact that they so brazenly ripped off jeff soto for their promo video, seemingly without a hint of remorse.

then seeing that awful mock up of the building with a superimposed espo piece on the wall filled me with dread that an artist i have undying respect for had been horrendously compromised.

i wanted this to be be better, but i think in the end that this proves to me that street art cannot be bottled and sold as an art fair.