News and views on visual communications from the writers of Creative Review

No sign of Santa

Gavin 30/11/06, 18:42

A host of artists’ prints and canvasses for sale? In a temporary shopfront in the heart of London? Just before Christmas? Yes, it’s time once more for Santa’s Ghetto. This is, apparently, the sixth year running that artist Banksy’s alternative Christmas gift shop has taken over an unused store front in central London and stuffed it full of subversive artwork by the likes of Banksy himself, Jamie Hewlett, Ian Stevenson, Insect, D-Face, David Shrigley, Nick Walker, Eric The Dog…

This year Santa’s Ghetto is slap bang in the centre of town, at 15 Oxford Street (opposite Virgin Megastore). We were invited for a sneaky preview of what the public can find inside this year…

London Bridge by Ian Stevenson.

We love these fighting clowns by Ian Stevenson.

Sculpture by Mark Jenkins.

Doctored street signage by Pictures On Walls.

Cunt Land by Tom Ormond.

This canvas is by D-Face.

This is by Insect.

oh, and the image at the top of this post is Mona Simpson by Nick Walker.

To see / buy all this stuff and more - check out Santa’s Ghetto at 15 Oxford Street, W1 - from 1st December until 23 December. Open daily from 11am-8pm and from 12-6pm on Sundays.

Posted in Graphic Design Photography Illustration Art

(4 comments)

Am I the only person who thinks that Banksy is the most over-rated artist in recent memory? He seems to have the mindset of an angry 13 year old and his “subversive” work is as politcally naive as it is ill-informed.

Posted by aaaa on 01/12/06, 3:29 pm

i find his work both original and entertaining, an inspiration, in a world full of squares he is decidedly oval.

Posted by romack on 31/01/07, 3:44 pm

I’m with you aaaa - give us David Shrigley any day of the week !

Posted by Polite on 15/11/07, 11:41 am

Tom Ormond has encapuslated, with one simple and exquisite device, the manifold frustrations I experience on a day-to-day basis as an inhabitant of London.

Posted by Matt Kerry on 15/11/07, 3:35 pm

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