Ghetto fabulous

Banksy - sinner or winner? This was the question racing through my mind this past weekend as I escaped the hordes on Oxford Street who were suckered into town by the Gap, Selfridges, and Threshers "secret" email sale vouchers. Secret, that is, if you ignore everybody and their MySpace guestbook who received the same forwarded attachment.

Which is why I decided to escape the voucher shackles and head to 15 Oxford Street to Banksy's annual anti-holiday art show/fair, "Santa’s Ghetto," where the star attraction was Sir Banks’ freshly-created send-up of Michael Jackson in a Hansel & Gretel-style tableau. Not a Hoxton hipster elite and only recently aware that Nathan Barley ever existed, I couldn't help but want to dismiss the whole charade as pretentious arty farty fanfare. But despite every gritty toothed intention, I came away without too much enamel grinding.

And surprisingly not because of Banksy's billing. Disappointingly, his Jacko-fied rendition of Tom Ormond's fantasy piece is less than a thriller. But, rather, the most memorable (and viewable from the shop window) was this mocked-up photo by Peter Kennard of Tony Blair taking pictures on his mobile phone against a backdrop of burning oil fields. Not only because it might as well be a real photograph, but because it showed art's power to satirise those things we are left powerless to change. And these days, what is more valuable than a laugh?

For more pictures from Santa's Ghetto click here.