This weekend saw Bristol, er, “hosting” the latest Temporary Autonomous Art exhibition in a squatted warehouse on the banks of the Malago river in Bedminster. Although I ended up being there through a convergence of people I know in London and Bristol, I would have looked in on it anyway, since the title so obviously made reference to Hakim Bey’s Temporary Autonomous Zone, a text I’ve mentioned in a previous post. I suppose it’s another way of judging a book by the proverbial cover.
Whilst speaking to B——, who had apparently “prodded people” to get stuff together for the exhibition, I mentioned the TAZ connection. B—— told me a story that seemed to echo it in an unusual way: the above detail from the poster was photographed a week before the exhibition on the street in Bristol. B—— said that apparently the graffiti had been done by Banksy, and that it had since been painted over. I haven’t confirmed who made it – but it doesn’t really matter in this context – what I liked was the way that the poster and flyer for a deliberately temporary art exhibition made an artefact less temporary by accident.