> The only reason we're talking about this is because of Banksy.

Baloney. It's a guerilla sculpture put up in the center of London. My guess is we might be talking about it more if it were unsigned as a case of whodunnit.

But for me personally, I roll my eyes at all the ex-art students who always complain "it's a hack" for any piece of art that appeals to a wide audience and isn't some obnoxious 8-layers deep meaning. You literally see it all the time, and half the time it just strikes me as thinly-veiled jealousy, if not from the art student perspective than from the "I'm so much more sophisticated than the unwashed masses" perspective.

It happened on HN a few months ago in a post about Simon Berger, an artist who makes portraits with cracked glass. The artist has achieved relatively wide appeal, and many of the comments here were along the lines of "Meh, he's a talentless hack, he just stumbled along a 'cool' technique but the subjects are boring."

I'd have a lot more respect for folks that could just say "it's not my bag" and move on, rather than pretend they're so much more sophisticated than people who enjoy this art.