Banksy on artofthestate

After receiving a plexiglass coating in a near record breaking time Banksy’s bunting piece has remained in place on the side of a Poundland since May 2012. Not any more as witnessed by this photo kindly supplied by Sarah.

Now what would appear to have happened in this instance is that someone’s offered the wall owner some money and it’s been cut straight out of the wall. It’s now appearing on a US based auction house site with an price estimate starting at $400K. This always creates a bit of controversy and here ares my thoughts about the whole sorry mess.

The Wall Owner. You can’t blame them can you? Someone sprays something on your wall, then someone offers you thousands of pounds for it and also to pay for the wall to be restored. Worse things could happen I guess.

The buyer who paid for it to be removed it from the wall. They’ll probably try and defend their action by saying they were preserving it or some other crap. It’s just about the money of course. That art was put there by the artist for everyone to see not for some chancer to line their pockets. Absolute tossers without question.

The auction house. If they are a decent outfit I can’t see why they’d touch this. There’s no Pest Control Office authentication that it’s a Banksy piece and there’s unlikely to be. Banksy doesn’t spray stuff in the street to line the pockets of speculators.

Of course writing all of the above is pretty pointless, shit happens.  Joe Strummer neatly summed it up when he said “Greed, it ain’t going anywhere. They should have that on a big billboard across Times Square. Think on that. Without people you’re nothing.”.

With very little in the way of a fanfare let alone an opening ceremony two new Banksy pieces have arrived on Banksy.co.uk in this the week leading up to the Olympics. Locations are to my knowledge are not yet known (all tips much appreciated ).

See them in theor original size on banksy.co.uk

Its always interesting when Banksy updates his website as we usually get to see some new works and its a chance to get some older ones confirmed. This time around there’s a good selection in both categories. The origami bird with a goldfish spotted in Lyme Regis earlier this year appears for the first time as does last weeks child making bunting.

Images: artofthestate

There’s a bunch of other new images in the Outside section some of which haven’t been seen before or at least have never been attributed to Banksy.

On the Inside section there are again new works on display including an amazing look at his studio. Go to banksy.co.uk for higher resolution versions as these are just low-res copies.

Images: banksy.co.uk

Finally the shop page has been updated with a new take on the “I went to London and all I got Was This Lousy Tshirt” motif. Here’s a new version that’s still in situ on Sclater Street in the much overplayed streets of Shoreditch.

Image: artofthestate

First spotted on Monday 14th May this child making Union flag bunting on the side of a Poundland store in Turnpike Lane, London has pretty much instantly been identified as a new Banksy piece. I got there pretty late for this one so here’s a picture of it with the bunting removed and replaced and some none too subtle perspex slapped on the top. Hooked blog have some really good pictures of it before it got the preservation treatment, see them here. Read more about the piece over on artofthestate.co.uk

Banksy child sewing bunting: artofthestate

Banksy.co.uk has a series of new works on display right now which pretty much confirm some recent rumours and in one instance tackle head on some of the more ridiculous talk about his tit for tat feud with Robbo.

Starting with one of the most recent pieces this seems to have turned up near the Blackwall Tunnel in recent days.

Situated on the side of the empty shell of a building it seems luxury living in easy travelling distance of Canary Wharf has been put on hold.

This ones already attracted a lot of interest. In the heart of London’s Mayfair a well off woman plummets down the side of another empty building with her trolley spilling the trappings of  her lifestyle.

Banksy has been busy elsewhere too. A couple of biplane skywriting pieces have also appeared. Whilst the one in Wapping has already been removed the pick of the two has to be the one in Liverpool which is still there. Thanks to regular Art Of The State reader Darren here’s a couple of great pictures to show you.

Finally its worth checking Banksy’s newly updated frequently asked questions section which includes his version of events regarding the Robbo feud. Rumours always carry more weight than facts and whatever you may think of Banksy or Robbo the bottom line is that Robbo remains in a serious condition and Banksy has responded by leaving this sketchy outline in Robbo’s old spot presumably in the hope that he recovers and comes back to finally reclaim this spot.

A little round up of some upmarket Banksy news over which I’m guessing he has little control and a review of another recently released Banksy locations app:

Partners in crime Bankrobber Gallery and the Keszler Gallery have teamed up to have a show of their cut out of the wall Banksy pieces. They have a ridiculous looking video, all dark and mysterious and more than a bit cliched, which documents their journey to basically buy a piece of wall. Apparently they are at pains to point out that they didn’t organise the work being taken from the street in its original location of Palestine, they just bought it after it had been removed to sell on to someone else at what they no doubt will hope to be a huge profit. This is pretty much the street art equivalent of saying “we’re only selling ivory, we didn’t actually kill the elephant ourselves”.

Watch some rather pointless video about buying art nicked off the street here.  Believe it or not there’s actually a part 2 to this!

Bonhams meanwhile had an auction of authenticated Banksy works which went for serious money including screen prints at £13K and canvases for up to 100K. It would seem that while shares are on the slide the world over the art market remains in places very buouyant.

Sotheby’s have some Banksy pieces coming up too. ‘Ballerina With Action Man Parts’, a version of which was on show at 2009’s Banksy versus Bristol Museum Exhibition, is from an edition of 6 and has a guide price of £40,000 to £60,000.

Banksy: Ballerina With Action Man Parts

‘Bullet Proof David’, constructed out of enamel. Fibreglass and wax from an edition of three one of which was seen at the Cans Festival is expected to sell for between £120,000 to £180,000. Finally a bronze rat from an edition of 12 has an estimate of £50,000 to £70,000. This piece is unique in that it has acrylic paint on the rat’s brush.

Banksy: Bullet Proof David

Regular readers may recall that I was pretty dismissive of the Banksy Locations iphone app. It’s still on my phone and I’d like to tell you that it has improved of late but it takes an age to load. Oh hang on, it’s finally appeared now. It is better than it was but its painful in its execution. It’s also still leading you to lots of things that just aren’t there and haven’t been for years. I remain unimpressed even though it now costs 69p (it was originally offered at a higher introductory price claiming it was going to increase in price but that never happened and its now been reduced, huh)?

A far better choice is the Banksy Bristol Tour locations app. It’s a neat looking and more importantly actually working guide to 14 works attributed to Banksy in Bristol including some large pieces in really good condition. Each piece has a photo and a decent write up and the current status is largely correct. If you’re going to Bristol on a Banksy hunt this would be a very useful addition and would save a lot of research. Quite expensive at £1.99 but does the job well.

Right, that’s that little lot out of the way. A small warning, the next update will feature that Blek Le Rat Banksy quote….

Banksy: Welcome To The West Country (photo: banksy.co.uk)

New on Banksy.co.uk. This sign has appeared in the Outside section of Banksy’s website and its installation was shown in a video clip on TV over the weekend as part of Channel 4′s ‘street summer’ programming season. The photo was taken near junction two of the M32 near Bristol – but don’t go looking for the sign. A few people have already been there and have reported it as gone missing. In fact the BBC noted that all this may have happened over 3 months ago according to  Highways Agency officers who say they removed it as part their routine patrols.

So I think that I said something like Banksy’s recent “oh no…my tap’s been phoned’ piece was probably in an out of the way place and that maybe the tap wasn’t working ‘cos  it’d probably get left on. Well artofthestate no longer gives out locations for Banksy pieces until they are well known or blindingly obvious but I can report that the tap most definitely is in working order. Shows how much I know. More pictures on artofthestate flickr later.

photo: artofthestate.co.uk

Brinngg! Brinngg! Oh no…my tap’s been phoned (photo: banksy.co.uk)

With a history stretching as far back as the early days in Bristol Banksy’s stick figure makes another appearance with a bit of fun referencing the recent phone tapping scandals. The location of this piece is not known to date. Is it on the street? Well it is in the outdoors section of his website but taps on the side of buildings accessible to the public are rare unless they’re out of the way a bit, for use by the public or not working!

Below are a few previous outings for Banksy’s stick figures at the Bristol Museum in 2009 and West London in 2006.

Banksy – You have got to be kidding me (photo: artofthestate)

Banksy: He’s just crap at drawing flowers (photo:artofthestate) 

Banksy: Graffiti Removal Hotline, West London (photo: artofthestate)