ArtTracker

Another People’s Princess?

Last month a spray-painted image of a pregnant Duchess of Cambridge appeared on a wall in Islington, the North London borough Kate Middleton has visited several times in her charity work. The mural is not the work of the street artists Banksy or JR, but Pegasus, a 29-year-old American who goes by Chris.

He spent all night doing this image of Kate because she seems to be really supportive of this borough and people here love her for it,’ says a spokesman for the Faith Inc Gallery on whose outside wall Kate is painted.

It’s only been up since last night and I’ve already had two offers to buy it prised off the wall, which isn’t possible anyway,’ reported London’s Daily Mail.

Johnny Depp Pegasus Drop In

Fast forward to Saturday December 6th where Pegasus had his first solo show at London’s Faith Inc. Gallery. Jaws dropped when actor Johnny Depp made a surprise visit to the gallery, paying £25,000 for a Pegasus painting of a young Queen Elizabeth posing 1950s style in a bathing suit and the Diamond Diadem Tiara.

Depp also commissioned a new work of Catherine Middleton with nothing except a crown on her pregnant stomach. One assumes the final painting will resemble the Islington wall painting.

Related: If Banksy thinks he’s following in Andy Warhol’s footsteps, he’s tripping The Guardian

To quote another guru of modern culture (Marshall McLuhan) the medium is the message: what you do is less important than how you transmit it. If you make street art you instantly, by that act, proclaim so many hip affinities that your art becomes a symbol of widely admired associations and meanings. All graffiti is cool. The form, not the content, defines that coolness. Calling out Banksy as a bad artist is therefore impossible. If you say he’s crap, he will turn out to be in on the joke. He’s the perfect fraud for our time.

So it goes, to the streets of New York, and Warhol is undoubtedly amused in the great sushi bar in the sky.

View more Pegasus artwork at his online gallery.

Pop It

Givenchy 2015

Givenchy by Riccardo Tisci turns to American actor Julia Roberts for its Spring Summer 2015 ad campaign. Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott capture Roberts styled by Katy England.

Asked why he chose Roberts, Riccardo Tisci told WWD: