Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis
On November 19, Artcurial gives collectors of urban art 64 lots including works by Dondi White, Richard Hambleton with a Shadow Head from 1982-85 (€45,000 – 55,000) or Keith Haring, contemporaries Kaws, Shepard Fairey with Bob Marley slave driver, 2015, (€25,000 – 35,000), JonOne, DRAN and Invader.
Leading the sale is a unique work by Banksy, Kill Mom ?, a stencil and aerosol on cardboard made in 2003, and estimated between €250,000 and €350,000).
Phillips’ is bringing Banksy to Hong Kong in December with Banksy: Who’s Laughing Now? The exhibition to be held in the St. George’s Building opens November 17th to coincide with Phillips’ Hong Kong sales later in the month. It presents 27 works by the anonymous street artist, including significant and previously unseen artworks like the six-meter long Laughing Now (above) and Girl with Balloon, AP Gold, the now notorious image that introduced Banksy to an even wider audience around the world.
According to Phillips, the show will offer two portraits of Abraham Lincoln, executed after the series of New Orleans murals that Banksy created in 2008 as commentaries on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Miety Heiden, Deputy Chairman and Head of Private Sales: “The works highlighted in this exhibition illustrate the artistic achievements of Banksy over the last two decades. A visionary and trailblazer at the forefront of street art since the 1990s, Banksy has dedicated his career to challenging society’s perception of fine art versus street art. Banksy has been propelled to the forefront of today’s art market and we look forward to sharing these works with both new and longstanding admirers of his work.”
Danielle Rahm neatly limns the contradictions and confounding path of Banksy and his street art. What she doesn’t explain is the basis for the estimate on Banksy’s net worth. How can the assets of an anonymous person be estimated? Are the celebrity sites that claim he has $20m in assets counting his auction sales, his movie profits or his earlier gallery sales?
Now granted, Banksy is not in need of money, unlike many of the street artists he identifies with. He is estimated to have a net worth upwards of $20 million, and recently discussed the internal struggle of profiting from his artwork with the Village Voice, stating that “commercial success is a mark of failure for a graffiti artist.” Many call him a sell-out, however, if it was not for his early (and very profitable) successes, he would not have the financial freedom to use his artwork and notoriety to get his point of view across.[…]
So, what do you do if you wake up tomorrow morning, the lucky “owner” of Banksy’s latest creation? Congratulations, you are now in the moral dilemma of a lifetime. The mural could sell for well over a million dollars at auction, should you wish to cash in on it. Do you break out the excavator and call Sotheby’s? Do you preserve it for public enjoyment with security guards, metal gates or Plexiglas? Or, you could let it go organically the way of most street art – destroyed by a fresh coat of paint, another street artist with his own vision, or a city employee wielding a buffer.
Banksy has said, “Graffiti art has a hard enough life as it is, before you add hedge-fund managers wanting to chop it out and hang it over the fireplace. For the sake of keeping all street art where it belongs, I’d encourage people not to buy anything by anybody, unless it was created for sale in the first place.”
Just for the record, and not because anyone needs to defend hedge fund managers, but the ones who are chopping out street art works are the owners of the buildings he chooses, not the buyers. And so far, we don’t know of many hedgies who have pushed street art or Banksy as the stars of their collections.
Banksy: The $20 Million Graffiti Artist Who Doesn’t Want His Art To Be Worth Anything (Forbes)
Melanie Ryzik’s New York Times piece revealing the sale of a Los Angeles gas station’s Banksy mural appeared in the paper this morning but was quickly followed by a blog post revealing the name of the seller and the reasons behind the sale. Banksy painted the mural with the owner’s permission in 2008 but the family sold the gas startion last year to Chevron:
“I said, ‘I’ll sell you the location but I’m going to take the Banksy,’” Mr. Rosenberg recalled. He worried that if he didn’t cut it out, it would be demolished or painted over. So he spent around $80,000 to remove “Flower Girl” and repair the wall. “It was almost like a family heirloom at that point,” he said.Continue Reading
(The Guardian’s video above seems to confirm that the owner is the seller in Miami)
The Financial Times looks into the Banksy mural on offer in a Miami auction and gets this non-denial confirmation about who might be selling the work:
Wood Green Investments, the property company which owns the Poundland shop unit, has remained silent throughout the dispute.
“If they deny removing the mural then they will become embroiled in an international criminal investigation that has already involved the FBI, but if they admit to consenting to [its removal] then they will become the target of abuse,” said their solicitor. “As a consequence, the advice to my client has been to say nothing.”
The Metropolitan Police confirmed they had received “an enquiry from US authorities” regarding ownership of the art work. “We have advised the US authorities there are no reports of theft,” a spokesman said. The auction house said it had done “all the necessary due diligence about the ownership of the work”, and would only halt the sale if authorities could prove it was taken illegally. […]
The Department for Media, Culture and Sport told the Financial Times that “the government has no powers to intervene in this matter which, on the face of it, appears to be a lawful and legitimate sale.”
Missing Art Sets Off International Probe (Financial Times)
