oh no its art...
The above links to an article outlining
an art theft. Someone was careless enough to leave a piece of art in
the street which has been stolen and re-appeared in a US auction for
around half a million dollars.
Nicked
The someone was Banksy, popular
graffiti artist whose Street Art piece was sprayed onto a Poundland
shop in Whymark Avenue (no, really), London. Although it was covered with a perspex protection, a scaffold was erected, tarps hung
and when it was taken away, so was the wall and the artwork. Well it
makes a change from folk removing Henry Moores and street furniture for the scrap metal
value.
The locals are not happy though. They
recognise a value to having a Banksy. The local councillor Alan
Strictland said there is “lots of anger” at the removal, and is
campaigning for the work's return. Meanwhile it goes under the
hammer in Miami for between £320k~£452k ($500,000~$700,000)
If they had had any sense they (the
London Council) would have put out another scaffolding, got any local
artist to knock out a copy, and released a statement saying it was
away being cleaned. I could replicate that wee mural pretty much
identically for £750 plus the train fare. (Even the woman who f'ed
up the Ecce Homo mural restoration could knock out a passable Banksy.)
That might have put a fly in the ointment of the provenance of the
one being sold in America. I can't imagine it was easy to remove the
wall section without the bricks dislodging and destroying the image.
Surely easier to just remove the section, then rebuild it elsewhere,
re-render it and repaint the image, the last and least tricky part of
the operation. It is no Mona Lisa. It certainly doesn't have a value
of a third of a million pounds in my opinion, but someone obviously
thought it was worth the trouble.
Banksy will probably remain schtum. His
trade mark is anonymity. You are not supposed to know his name is
probably Robin Gunningham, born in '73 or '74. He went to a nice
public school where he was good at art. He has denied such
allegations saying “anyone described as being “good at drawing”
doesn't sound like Banksy to me.” The critics are of a similar
opinion describing his work as competent rather than brilliant. His
work is usually stencilled graffiti in monochromes often with a
splash of colour. The theme is often innocence fighting back against
heavy handed authority. Charlie Brooker commented that “his work
looks brilliantly clever to idiots.”
Both of the above are thought to be Banksy.
I quite like some of the images –
more graphic icons than paintings. However I have a greater
admiration of his ability to make a hefty income from a middling
talent while avoiding the weight of the law for graffiti-ing. Again,
he has good reason for anonymity.
I find his simpering political
statements a little niave for someone only a dozen years my junior.
Squatter-teen-angst shows two fingers to the establishment. While he
is being embraced by that very establishment. His cupidity; posting
aggressive dismissals on the www of the folk paying good money for
his art at auction, immediately post auction, does not, as he
imagines, make him more dope. Bristol Council (his own stomping
ground) pledged to preserve original Banksies, while removing
daubings thought to be fake or just run of the mill graffiti vandalism. And there's the rub; establishing authentication alongside the difficulties of illegality, anonymity, transience, ownership and art-versus-vandalism. Also,
it is very straightforward to fake a Banksy.
The man himself said that he “didn't
care if people ripped off his work,” but I doubt he had the removal
of Whymark Ave in mind. He himself admits being
influenced by graffiti artists like 3D of Massive Attack and has been
linked with (been accused of copying) French artist Blek le Rat.
It occurred to me that it may well have
been an inside job. The kind of team required to remove a section of
Poundland wall (the first time in history someone has broken into
Poundland?)
is exactly the sort of squad Banksy has at his disposal for some of
his “installation” type work. What would prompt him to steal his
own work? I pictured a trip to the financial institute to get a
mortgage and the banksy manager not warming to the spray paint
hands and balaclava. You
can't put down anonymous on the forms, you need to come clean.
I imagined him being sent out of the office past next in the queue,
The Stig. So maybe a nice little earner was required with a
kidnap-your-own-children scam. After all, Miami says it has the
paperwork.
However
a quick google and you realise Banksy has been selling books, prints and rather gauche paintings for big dollar, for quite some
time despite the fact that I struggled to find many great images to
illustrate this text.
I
am reminded of other authentication / fraud battles with artists
whose work lends itself to easy reproduction. Andy Warhol is all
about mechanical reproduction and who is to say whether he needed to
be (or if he was) present when certain work was being created. The
powers that be have stopped authenticating Jackson Pollocks because
they go for $100m and let's face it are easier to fake than many more
complex paintings. And more keep turning up. Here is one I made
earlier.
With
this story gathering momentum it will be interesting to see how
things pan out. It wouldn't be the first time Banksy was in the news,
albeit this time on the other side of the legal fence. A previous
episode I rather liked was his Di-faced Banksy of England Tenners which were handed out, some of which were used as tender, some of which sold on ebay for £200, a nice return.
Guardian
version
Banksy
website
biog and gallery:
http://www.stencilrevolution.com/profiles/about-banksy/
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