Everything you need to know about the art market in one three minute clip.
Banksy’s guerilla assault on New York continued last week with a big old needle jab into the art world’s balloon. The UK artist’s work regularly trades in the hundreds of thousands, but an anonymous street kiosk of Banksy paintings could only whip up $420 in sales.
So who were the suckers in this prank: The passersby who missed out on a jackpot, or the art collectors who spend six figures on work that isn’t worth 60 bucks on the street? Or maybe I’m the sucker for stopping to consider who the suckers are. Damn your wit, Banksy! Damn you!
I think the deeper question is what makes art valuable, and how much of the modern art market is hype and marketing? I suspect that was the heart of what Banksy was getting at with this. I’m reminded of the time world-renowned concert violinist Joshua Bell stood incognito on a Washington, D.C. subway platform and performed classical music for passersby on a 300-year-old Stradivarius violin valued at almost $4 million, during which time passersby dropped a total of $27 in his open violin case. Point being, without the cultural context and framework within which Joshua Bell’s art is celebrating and… Read more »
While I am also reminded of the performance of Joshua Bell, I think that there are different aspects at play within each, making the two incomparable. Banksy is an internationally acclaimed street artist, books documenting his work can be purchased at Urban Outfitters. Joshua Bell is an internationally acclaimed violinist, though I can almost guarantee that only a small fraction of the population could identify his sound, or recognize a Stradivarius for that matter, at a passing glance. Secondly, Bansky offered up some of his most recognizable pieces on this kiosk, thus making the prospect of originality that much less.… Read more »
Oh man… Brilliant. What I wouldn’t give to collaborate with Banksy!
The saturation of fakes in the market are what propagate this sort of lack of interest when seeing something like this on the street. Banksy’s art is easily replicable, making it a prime target for fraudulent reproduction. I can assure you I would’ve passed the kiosk up as well, under the defensive guise of not wanting to fall pray to scam “artists.”
And that’s exactly his point. You’ll happily fork over enough money to house a small village of people for a bit of paint skillfully sprayed on some canvas when you’re told Banksy did the spraying, but won’t fork over $60 for the same painting if the name isn’t attatched, or could be fraudulent. The “saturation of fakes” you speak of and mindset you exhibit are exactly what his actions were a comment on and your failure to notice this in any way just drives the point home.