8 ms·

I’m the Accidental Owner of a Banksy

189 points by c0riander 13y ago

pantalaimon 13y ago
That's terribly comical, considering it's just a graffiti piece. Banksy will find the fuzz it creates hilarious, I'm certain. Actually, the reactions it creates could be seen as the much grander art performance, compared to his previous 'art sale' [1] [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX54DIpacNE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX54DIpacNE
- next89 13y ago
  Yeah, it is really comical, but it's not "just" a graffiti piece, the same way that the painting of the Campbell's soup can it's not just a painting of a Campbell's soup can, or football is not just 22 guys chasing/transporting a ball. You have to look at the context.
- GhotiFish 13y ago
  What an effective display of the issues I have with art. Only a few people want these pieces, they are worthless in a vacuum. Only when shown in the context of "These pieces are by legendary artist banksy" do they become valuable treasures, in great demand. It distresses me the number of things on this planet that are valuable because people think they are valuable, not because they have any actual use. I suppose their value is in manipulating others. That is a form of utility, I admit.
  - voltagex_ 13y ago
    I think they make the city more interesting, and hopefully they inspire some taggers to transition from a name-writer to an artist.
  - alexleavitt 13y ago
    This is the entire underlying message of Banksy's film, Exit Through the Gift Shop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_Through_the_Gift_Shop http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_Through_the_Gift_Shop
  - arrrg 13y ago
    What’s your definition of “no use”? I’m quite confused by that. When I was last walking through a museum I felt tremendous joy and very much loved looking at everything. That’s a use, right? That makes those are pieces useful. It should be quite obvious that things capable of doing that acquire value. Sometimes that gets a bit ridiculous but a blanket claim that art has no use (or, even more specifically, that Banksy’s art has no use) seems equally ridiculous.
    - lmm 13y ago
      >What’s your definition of “no use”? I’m quite confused by that. When I was last walking through a museum I felt tremendous joy and very much loved looking at everything. That’s a use, right? That makes those are pieces useful. It should be quite obvious that things capable of doing that acquire value. But an original and a copy of a great picture inspire just as much joy when looking at them. Yet one is treated as far more valuable than the other. So something's funny there.
      - dsuth 13y ago
        Original artworks have greater value due to scarcity. It's pretty simple supply/demand - if everyone wants artwork from a certain artist, those pieces become more valuable. The same reason the value of artwork tends to spike after an artists death - no more artworks will be produced, so there is a definite cap on the amount of art. Mayor Bloomberg's statement that he intends to target Banksy's artworks to destroy them will make them very valuable indeed, in a "last chance to see" way.
        lmm 13y ago
        Just making something scarce doesn't inherently make it valuable; there needs to be some reason it's "better" than non-scarce equivalents.
yetanotherphd 13y ago
It took ten minutes of reading articles and comments to convince myself this was real and not a joke. You can't make this stuff up: "A scuffle broke out at the scene of Banksy's latest piece in Williamsburg as a building manager and bystanders manhandled a vandal who tagged over the piece [of graffiti]." "The building manager grabbed him and threw him down and was calling the cops, but the guy bolted"
- fennecfoxen 13y ago
  To be fair, Banksy put up something good-looking, and the vandal put up his tag. If you caught someone putting the latter anywhere, grabbed him and called the cops, I'd say you're probably on the right track. It's got more in common with "graffiti on a tasteful outdoor mural" than with typical graffiti-on-graffiti.
  - mjn 13y ago
    People tend to have those reactions even for stuff much less famous than Banksy. There is a bunch of artistic graffiti stuff painted all over the temporary walls around metro-station construction sites in Copenhagen, and it's frowned on to paint them over with just a tag.
  - yetanotherphd 13y ago
    I'm just going to quote from the comments section of [1]: theoddfather: Already dissed? Jesus, why are people so ghetto? bronxflash: how is that 'ghetto?' theoddfather: Tagging is ghetto bullshit with no redeeming social or artistic value. It's garbage and obviously in this case was meant to simply deface something that clearly has a great deal of value to many people. bronxflash: while i appreciate the fact that you said 'tagging' and not the all-inclusive 'graffiti,' tagging was the foundation in the early seventies of an entire visual aesthetic that came to be related to the explosion of urban culture; hey, it had to start somewhere and it started with tagging. graffiti was at no point in its origins exclusively 'ghetto': white kids on the upper west side, in south brooklyn, and the east bronx all did graffiti. maybe more kids in the hood did it, because not everyone had the same social outlets by way of moeny and power and social status. banksy wouldn't even exist without what filtered out of upper manhattan and the southern bronx and was known as 'tagging.' [1] http://gothamist.com/2013/10/17/banksy_bed_stuy.php http://gothamist.com/2013/10/17/banksy_bed_stuy.php
iamben 13y ago
Mayor Bloomberg's reaction is interesting - I'm curious to know when a person transitions from vandal to artist. I don't think anyone could argue that Banksy hasn't cemented a place in the 'history of art' and the books our children read that cover this period will feature his work. In the UK a lot of people are genuinely gutted when a Banksy gets removed or covered - like something (a gift?) has been removed from the community. People who have their buildings 'vandalised' are often incredibly proud. But at the end of the day, it's still graffiti, still vandalism and I can understand Bloomberg's zero tolerance attitude. I wonder how he'd feel if it was on a building he privately owned (not that he needs the money...)?
- mhurron 13y ago
  > 'm curious to know when a person transitions from vandal to artist. When they stop vandalizing.
  - ianstormtaylor 13y ago
    Nah, they aren't mutually exclusive.
    - anabis 13y ago
      Yeah, I agree. It is art, but if the owners sue, its vandalism. Private property is one of the foundations of market economy, and I can't think of any necessity of art that calls for suspension of it. On the same vein, the Mayor can't sue on behalf of private owners. If the owners like it, then its OK.
      - yetanotherphd 13y ago
        This is a criminal matter, not a civil matter. It's just like if a guy punches me on the street, but I decide it was cool and edgy and added to the gritty vibe of the neighborhood. The prosecutor can still bring charges.
        13y ago
3pt14159 13y ago
I tried to find out the owner of a commercial building that was Banksied in order to buy a cut out of the wall from him, but by the time I had gotten anywhere the work had been overtagged :(
drcode 13y ago
HN, please don't feed the trolls, even if they're PR-hungry artists.
- mcantelon 13y ago
  HN is interested in the indivudal or collective knows as Banksy as he/it successfully hacks mainstream culture with critical messages.
  - michaelwww 13y ago
    Your language exhibits a bias that says: a) Banksy is a culture hacker b) Banksy is outside mainstream culture c) Banksy is a successful hacker. All of that is arguable, but one thing we can say for sure is Banksy is interesting because people are interested in Banksy - famous for being famous like Paris Hilton.
    - mcantelon 13y ago
      I assert A, B, and C, yes. Banksy managed to simultaneously profit from, and socially comment globally using, a street medium. Paris Hilton was born with the looks and means needed to make connections and she worked from that, gaining notoriety through her lack of inhibition. I can see the comparison in that their trajectories were both unconventional to some degree, but beyond that, not much simularity. If you haven't, I'd recommend watching the humorous Banksy-related documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop". It's quite interesting and entertaining and not what you'd expect.
      - michaelwww 13y ago
        Thanks for the recommendation. I will watch that. My bottom line is have I learned anything from Banksy? No I haven't. I'll watch it and report back.
      - voltagex_ 13y ago
        Another really good one to watch is "Bomb It" on Netflix/iTunes. The sequel is out soon.
robabbott 13y ago
First-world problem...
brunoqc 13y ago
"No. 17 will forever be ours" imho art like this belongs to the city.
- NamTaf 13y ago
  They were, confusingly, referring to 'No[v]. 17'. The prior sentence refers to a new day coming, which is 'No[v]. 18'. I have no idea why they didn't go with the accepted abbreviation of November as 'Nov'. They weren't referring to building number 17. Just clarifying, not disagreeing with your statement :)
  - fotbr 13y ago
    >I have no idea why they didn't go with the accepted abbreviation of November as 'Nov'. Perhaps because they're talking about October?
  - e28eta 13y ago
    It means the #17, as in the 17th painting by Banksy, as the article says early on.
    - NamTaf 13y ago
      Aha, my bad. Thanks for the correction. It makes more sense now that I think about it; I'm almost a month early for it to be Nov. 17th.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- cowsandmilk 13y ago
  everything in the article suggests they are looking to preserve this piece, not take it away from the city, I'm not sure where you believe your disagreement comes from, considering the inherently ambiguous definition of "ours". Thus far, the owner is out of pocket for security guards to protect the piece after someone vandalized it. In fact, most of Banksy's pieces have been vandalized, so sadly, it seems security is needed.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
danielharan 13y ago
"Will it make us money?" and describing this as "our plight" are wrong-headed and hilarious, but par for the course in a city where the mayor doesn't see the beauty in such art.
confusedev 13y ago
Just enjoy it.
lifeformed 13y ago
The whole "high-art = big money" mindset is what ruins everything. Just let it be. It's an image that people enjoy looking at, and it's right there for everyone to see - touchable, fragile, transient. Giving it a monetary value defeats the whole purpose of it. It's not meant to be preserved, it's just a curio that livens up the outdoor scene. Stop valuing it so much - it's meant to be weathered and destroyed. Enjoy the art for what it is and let urban nature take its course.
- dionidium 13y ago
  This is one of those things, like complaining that the developer of a webapp you like "sold out" to a large company, that sounds nice unless it's your app with an offer or your building that just got tagged by Banksy. The owners of this building didn't assign the value; they inherited it. In any case it would be plain dumb to ignore it and I have no idea why anybody would upvote a comment suggesting that they do so.
  - Amadou 13y ago
    it would be plain dumb to ignore it and I have no idea why anybody would upvote a comment suggesting that they do so. I upvoted it because I was going to write essentially the same thing. I've been thinking about it since Colbert publicly non-invited Banksy to paint the wall outside his studio. I don't believe that dollars are an appropriate unit of measurement for life experiences. I do believe that graffiti and others forms of street art are intentionally impermanent and functions of their location. I would support trying to sell it if the building owners were living hand to mouth, but that's obviously not the case. The author's already monetized the "inheritance" by selling a literary "piece" to NY Magazine. She doesn't need to sell it so leaving it as part of the gestalt the artist created is the greater good. If it gets defaced by some other graffiti artist or the police/Bloomberg (who are only feeding the frenzy with their attitude) then so be it, the limited lifespan of graffiti is an inherent part of the art. Like making sandcastles. I would probably set up a hidden video cam in case someone else came along and tried to steal it. Not that the stealing is necessarily a problem for street-art, but taking it would involve damage to the building itself and that would be unacceptably outside the scope of screet-art.
Theodores 13y ago
If the mayor was serious about catching Banksy then he would go to the phone companies and get all of the phones that were within a 200 metre radius on the night that the artwork went up for each and every piece. Then he could put them in a database, get his 'SQL for Dummies' book out and select just the phone records that are common to all incidents. He can then go back to the phone companies and get the billing details for Banksy and his entourage. He could also ask them to let him know exactly where they are, follow them and catch them red handed doing their next piece. Personally I see Banksy as a cartoonist rather than as a graffiti artist. He does not have a formal arrangement with the papers to syndicate his work, he does not even have to churn something out every day. Instead he gets his work prominently shown in all of the British papers, reaching an audience that no other cartoonist can. He has Robin Hood grade street cred. due to this audience reach. Whereas other cartoonists use pen and paper, Banksy uses the side of some house or another wall as the medium. It is an intermediate form much like the conventional cartoonist's paper is. Although of value to the crazies that go mad for such things it is of no value to Banksy if his aim is to get his work into the paper, to reach a mass audience. As for the people who have inherited the work, they could just let the boring 'tag' graffiti artists vandalise the Banksy masterpiece as quickly as possible, whilst there is still the media interest. It will then be known that it has been destroyed and the troublesome visitors will cease to turn up. They can then paint it over, to restore their property back to normal and get on with life. Getting back to the mayor, if the trick works for catching Banksy then it will probably work for all of the inane tagging losers out there. So long as citizens report new tag-vandalisms in a timely fashion then the police should be able to get a reasonable sized list of phone numbers to work with. I have known and known of 'tag' graffiti artists in my time. I still don't see why they are so determined to do what they do and for so late into adult life. I feel sorry for them not having any meaning to their 'art'. The strangest thing to me are the 'tags' put up in some foreign town. Imagine going to another country, a place you do not live, just to paint your tag up on some walls that you are not going to see again. With a Banksy it cannot be said to truly exist until the papers report the new birth. With small time tedious tagging types they get Facebook instead of the media to show off their efforts. Invariably those that tag post their tags online somewhere. The phones can lead the authorities to where this is and get the evidence needed for prosecution.
- 13y ago
sharkweek 13y ago
I think my favorite one so far was his "art stand" where he was selling his original Banksy stencils for $60 -- I'm assuming these will likely start popping up in auction for quite a bit more. I would have likely walked by a stand like that and assumed it was a scam. But if you had told me it was real and I could have bought one for $60 bucks, I would have tried to immediately buy them all. http://instagram.com/p/fa_ndFq-3W/ http://instagram.com/p/fa_ndFq-3W/
- cromulent 13y ago
  Only 8 were sold, 4 to one guy to decorate his new home in Chicago. I bet he's happy.
zakarum009 13y ago
In my opinion, graffiti is a very temporal, fleeting art form. Enjoy it while it lasts, but it's impossible to preserve graffiti, especially from an infamous artist..
recroad 13y ago
If your family owns a building in NYC you're already rich. No idea why people would ask you that.
intelliot 13y ago
Who is Banksy? Is he Satoshi Nakamoto?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mathattack 13y ago
The whole Banksy craze tells me how much of the value in art is things being famous for their own sake. It isn't that it's art (or graffiti) that causes the problem (or value) it's that it's someone famous. There is a story in NYC about the French embassy finding they had a Michelangelo in the lobby of their building. (It was there when they bought the building) Once they realized what they had (years later) then they had a problem. They couldn't sell, it, and it required security, so ultimately they gave it to a museum. http://www.thearttribune.com/The-Cupid-attributed-to.html http://www.thearttribune.com/The-Cupid-attributed-to.html http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/a-statue-for-a-statue-sort-of/?_r=0 http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/a-statue-for-a-...
RockyMcNuts 13y ago
It's not graffiti, it's disrupting the entrenched fine art distribution incumbent oligopoly. hacking is just like painting and all that - http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html

189 points by c0riander 13y ago

That's terribly comical, considering it's just a graffiti piece. Banksy will find the fuzz it creates hilarious, I'm certain. Actually, the reactions it creates could be seen as the much grander art performance, compared to his previous 'art sale' [1] [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX54DIpacNE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX54DIpacNE

next89 13y ago
Yeah, it is really comical, but it's not "just" a graffiti piece, the same way that the painting of the Campbell's soup can it's not just a painting of a Campbell's soup can, or football is not just 22 guys chasing/transporting a ball. You have to look at the context.
GhotiFish 13y ago
What an effective display of the issues I have with art. Only a few people want these pieces, they are worthless in a vacuum. Only when shown in the context of "These pieces are by legendary artist banksy" do they become valuable treasures, in great demand. It distresses me the number of things on this planet that are valuable because people think they are valuable, not because they have any actual use. I suppose their value is in manipulating others. That is a form of utility, I admit.
- voltagex_ 13y ago
  I think they make the city more interesting, and hopefully they inspire some taggers to transition from a name-writer to an artist.
- alexleavitt 13y ago
  This is the entire underlying message of Banksy's film, Exit Through the Gift Shop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_Through_the_Gift_Shop http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_Through_the_Gift_Shop
- arrrg 13y ago
  What’s your definition of “no use”? I’m quite confused by that. When I was last walking through a museum I felt tremendous joy and very much loved looking at everything. That’s a use, right? That makes those are pieces useful. It should be quite obvious that things capable of doing that acquire value. Sometimes that gets a bit ridiculous but a blanket claim that art has no use (or, even more specifically, that Banksy’s art has no use) seems equally ridiculous.
  - lmm 13y ago
    >What’s your definition of “no use”? I’m quite confused by that. When I was last walking through a museum I felt tremendous joy and very much loved looking at everything. That’s a use, right? That makes those are pieces useful. It should be quite obvious that things capable of doing that acquire value. But an original and a copy of a great picture inspire just as much joy when looking at them. Yet one is treated as far more valuable than the other. So something's funny there.
    - dsuth 13y ago
      Original artworks have greater value due to scarcity. It's pretty simple supply/demand - if everyone wants artwork from a certain artist, those pieces become more valuable. The same reason the value of artwork tends to spike after an artists death - no more artworks will be produced, so there is a definite cap on the amount of art. Mayor Bloomberg's statement that he intends to target Banksy's artworks to destroy them will make them very valuable indeed, in a "last chance to see" way.
      - lmm 13y ago
        Just making something scarce doesn't inherently make it valuable; there needs to be some reason it's "better" than non-scarce equivalents.

yetanotherphd 13y ago

It took ten minutes of reading articles and comments to convince myself this was real and not a joke. You can't make this stuff up: "A scuffle broke out at the scene of Banksy's latest piece in Williamsburg as a building manager and bystanders manhandled a vandal who tagged over the piece [of graffiti]." "The building manager grabbed him and threw him down and was calling the cops, but the guy bolted"

fennecfoxen 13y ago
To be fair, Banksy put up something good-looking, and the vandal put up his tag. If you caught someone putting the latter anywhere, grabbed him and called the cops, I'd say you're probably on the right track. It's got more in common with "graffiti on a tasteful outdoor mural" than with typical graffiti-on-graffiti.
- mjn 13y ago
  People tend to have those reactions even for stuff much less famous than Banksy. There is a bunch of artistic graffiti stuff painted all over the temporary walls around metro-station construction sites in Copenhagen, and it's frowned on to paint them over with just a tag.
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
  I'm just going to quote from the comments section of [1]: theoddfather: Already dissed? Jesus, why are people so ghetto? bronxflash: how is that 'ghetto?' theoddfather: Tagging is ghetto bullshit with no redeeming social or artistic value. It's garbage and obviously in this case was meant to simply deface something that clearly has a great deal of value to many people. bronxflash: while i appreciate the fact that you said 'tagging' and not the all-inclusive 'graffiti,' tagging was the foundation in the early seventies of an entire visual aesthetic that came to be related to the explosion of urban culture; hey, it had to start somewhere and it started with tagging. graffiti was at no point in its origins exclusively 'ghetto': white kids on the upper west side, in south brooklyn, and the east bronx all did graffiti. maybe more kids in the hood did it, because not everyone had the same social outlets by way of moeny and power and social status. banksy wouldn't even exist without what filtered out of upper manhattan and the southern bronx and was known as 'tagging.' [1] http://gothamist.com/2013/10/17/banksy_bed_stuy.php http://gothamist.com/2013/10/17/banksy_bed_stuy.php

iamben 13y ago

Mayor Bloomberg's reaction is interesting - I'm curious to know when a person transitions from vandal to artist. I don't think anyone could argue that Banksy hasn't cemented a place in the 'history of art' and the books our children read that cover this period will feature his work. In the UK a lot of people are genuinely gutted when a Banksy gets removed or covered - like something (a gift?) has been removed from the community. People who have their buildings 'vandalised' are often incredibly proud. But at the end of the day, it's still graffiti, still vandalism and I can understand Bloomberg's zero tolerance attitude. I wonder how he'd feel if it was on a building he privately owned (not that he needs the money...)?

mhurron 13y ago
> 'm curious to know when a person transitions from vandal to artist. When they stop vandalizing.
- ianstormtaylor 13y ago
  Nah, they aren't mutually exclusive.
  - anabis 13y ago
    Yeah, I agree. It is art, but if the owners sue, its vandalism. Private property is one of the foundations of market economy, and I can't think of any necessity of art that calls for suspension of it. On the same vein, the Mayor can't sue on behalf of private owners. If the owners like it, then its OK.
    - yetanotherphd 13y ago
      This is a criminal matter, not a civil matter. It's just like if a guy punches me on the street, but I decide it was cool and edgy and added to the gritty vibe of the neighborhood. The prosecutor can still bring charges.
      - 13y ago

3pt14159 13y ago

I tried to find out the owner of a commercial building that was Banksied in order to buy a cut out of the wall from him, but by the time I had gotten anywhere the work had been overtagged :(

drcode 13y ago

HN, please don't feed the trolls, even if they're PR-hungry artists.

mcantelon 13y ago
HN is interested in the indivudal or collective knows as Banksy as he/it successfully hacks mainstream culture with critical messages.
- michaelwww 13y ago
  Your language exhibits a bias that says: a) Banksy is a culture hacker b) Banksy is outside mainstream culture c) Banksy is a successful hacker. All of that is arguable, but one thing we can say for sure is Banksy is interesting because people are interested in Banksy - famous for being famous like Paris Hilton.
  - mcantelon 13y ago
    I assert A, B, and C, yes. Banksy managed to simultaneously profit from, and socially comment globally using, a street medium. Paris Hilton was born with the looks and means needed to make connections and she worked from that, gaining notoriety through her lack of inhibition. I can see the comparison in that their trajectories were both unconventional to some degree, but beyond that, not much simularity. If you haven't, I'd recommend watching the humorous Banksy-related documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop". It's quite interesting and entertaining and not what you'd expect.
    - michaelwww 13y ago
      Thanks for the recommendation. I will watch that. My bottom line is have I learned anything from Banksy? No I haven't. I'll watch it and report back.
    - voltagex_ 13y ago
      Another really good one to watch is "Bomb It" on Netflix/iTunes. The sequel is out soon.

robabbott 13y ago

First-world problem...

brunoqc 13y ago

"No. 17 will forever be ours" imho art like this belongs to the city.

NamTaf 13y ago
They were, confusingly, referring to 'No[v]. 17'. The prior sentence refers to a new day coming, which is 'No[v]. 18'. I have no idea why they didn't go with the accepted abbreviation of November as 'Nov'. They weren't referring to building number 17. Just clarifying, not disagreeing with your statement :)
- fotbr 13y ago
  >I have no idea why they didn't go with the accepted abbreviation of November as 'Nov'. Perhaps because they're talking about October?
- e28eta 13y ago
  It means the #17, as in the 17th painting by Banksy, as the article says early on.
  - NamTaf 13y ago
    Aha, my bad. Thanks for the correction. It makes more sense now that I think about it; I'm almost a month early for it to be Nov. 17th.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
cowsandmilk 13y ago
everything in the article suggests they are looking to preserve this piece, not take it away from the city, I'm not sure where you believe your disagreement comes from, considering the inherently ambiguous definition of "ours". Thus far, the owner is out of pocket for security guards to protect the piece after someone vandalized it. In fact, most of Banksy's pieces have been vandalized, so sadly, it seems security is needed.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

danielharan 13y ago

"Will it make us money?" and describing this as "our plight" are wrong-headed and hilarious, but par for the course in a city where the mayor doesn't see the beauty in such art.

confusedev 13y ago

Just enjoy it.

lifeformed 13y ago

The whole "high-art = big money" mindset is what ruins everything. Just let it be. It's an image that people enjoy looking at, and it's right there for everyone to see - touchable, fragile, transient. Giving it a monetary value defeats the whole purpose of it. It's not meant to be preserved, it's just a curio that livens up the outdoor scene. Stop valuing it so much - it's meant to be weathered and destroyed. Enjoy the art for what it is and let urban nature take its course.

dionidium 13y ago
This is one of those things, like complaining that the developer of a webapp you like "sold out" to a large company, that sounds nice unless it's your app with an offer or your building that just got tagged by Banksy. The owners of this building didn't assign the value; they inherited it. In any case it would be plain dumb to ignore it and I have no idea why anybody would upvote a comment suggesting that they do so.
- Amadou 13y ago
  it would be plain dumb to ignore it and I have no idea why anybody would upvote a comment suggesting that they do so. I upvoted it because I was going to write essentially the same thing. I've been thinking about it since Colbert publicly non-invited Banksy to paint the wall outside his studio. I don't believe that dollars are an appropriate unit of measurement for life experiences. I do believe that graffiti and others forms of street art are intentionally impermanent and functions of their location. I would support trying to sell it if the building owners were living hand to mouth, but that's obviously not the case. The author's already monetized the "inheritance" by selling a literary "piece" to NY Magazine. She doesn't need to sell it so leaving it as part of the gestalt the artist created is the greater good. If it gets defaced by some other graffiti artist or the police/Bloomberg (who are only feeding the frenzy with their attitude) then so be it, the limited lifespan of graffiti is an inherent part of the art. Like making sandcastles. I would probably set up a hidden video cam in case someone else came along and tried to steal it. Not that the stealing is necessarily a problem for street-art, but taking it would involve damage to the building itself and that would be unacceptably outside the scope of screet-art.

Theodores 13y ago

If the mayor was serious about catching Banksy then he would go to the phone companies and get all of the phones that were within a 200 metre radius on the night that the artwork went up for each and every piece. Then he could put them in a database, get his 'SQL for Dummies' book out and select just the phone records that are common to all incidents. He can then go back to the phone companies and get the billing details for Banksy and his entourage. He could also ask them to let him know exactly where they are, follow them and catch them red handed doing their next piece. Personally I see Banksy as a cartoonist rather than as a graffiti artist. He does not have a formal arrangement with the papers to syndicate his work, he does not even have to churn something out every day. Instead he gets his work prominently shown in all of the British papers, reaching an audience that no other cartoonist can. He has Robin Hood grade street cred. due to this audience reach. Whereas other cartoonists use pen and paper, Banksy uses the side of some house or another wall as the medium. It is an intermediate form much like the conventional cartoonist's paper is. Although of value to the crazies that go mad for such things it is of no value to Banksy if his aim is to get his work into the paper, to reach a mass audience. As for the people who have inherited the work, they could just let the boring 'tag' graffiti artists vandalise the Banksy masterpiece as quickly as possible, whilst there is still the media interest. It will then be known that it has been destroyed and the troublesome visitors will cease to turn up. They can then paint it over, to restore their property back to normal and get on with life. Getting back to the mayor, if the trick works for catching Banksy then it will probably work for all of the inane tagging losers out there. So long as citizens report new tag-vandalisms in a timely fashion then the police should be able to get a reasonable sized list of phone numbers to work with. I have known and known of 'tag' graffiti artists in my time. I still don't see why they are so determined to do what they do and for so late into adult life. I feel sorry for them not having any meaning to their 'art'. The strangest thing to me are the 'tags' put up in some foreign town. Imagine going to another country, a place you do not live, just to paint your tag up on some walls that you are not going to see again. With a Banksy it cannot be said to truly exist until the papers report the new birth. With small time tedious tagging types they get Facebook instead of the media to show off their efforts. Invariably those that tag post their tags online somewhere. The phones can lead the authorities to where this is and get the evidence needed for prosecution.

13y ago

sharkweek 13y ago

I think my favorite one so far was his "art stand" where he was selling his original Banksy stencils for $60 -- I'm assuming these will likely start popping up in auction for quite a bit more. I would have likely walked by a stand like that and assumed it was a scam. But if you had told me it was real and I could have bought one for $60 bucks, I would have tried to immediately buy them all. http://instagram.com/p/fa_ndFq-3W/ http://instagram.com/p/fa_ndFq-3W/

cromulent 13y ago
Only 8 were sold, 4 to one guy to decorate his new home in Chicago. I bet he's happy.

zakarum009 13y ago

In my opinion, graffiti is a very temporal, fleeting art form. Enjoy it while it lasts, but it's impossible to preserve graffiti, especially from an infamous artist..

recroad 13y ago

If your family owns a building in NYC you're already rich. No idea why people would ask you that.

intelliot 13y ago

Who is Banksy? Is he Satoshi Nakamoto?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

mathattack 13y ago

The whole Banksy craze tells me how much of the value in art is things being famous for their own sake. It isn't that it's art (or graffiti) that causes the problem (or value) it's that it's someone famous. There is a story in NYC about the French embassy finding they had a Michelangelo in the lobby of their building. (It was there when they bought the building) Once they realized what they had (years later) then they had a problem. They couldn't sell, it, and it required security, so ultimately they gave it to a museum. http://www.thearttribune.com/The-Cupid-attributed-to.html http://www.thearttribune.com/The-Cupid-attributed-to.html http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/a-statue-for-a-statue-sort-of/?_r=0 http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/a-statue-for-a-...

RockyMcNuts 13y ago

It's not graffiti, it's disrupting the entrenched fine art distribution incumbent oligopoly. hacking is just like painting and all that - http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html