The BBC has a selection of pictures drawn from an upcoming auction of art by the mysterious street artist Banksy at Bonham’s of London, including this one (below) of a rat with a sword, which puts me in mind of David Petersen’s Mouse Guard. The ten original Banksy works – which includes Lenin on roller skates and the screen print of ten pound notes which feature Princess Diana’s head instead of the Queen’s – are estimated to fetch up to £300, 000 in total – not bad for someone who started out spraying graffiti on buildings.
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October 24th, 2007 at 9:55 am
[...] In the same week that a number of original works by street artist Banksy are about go go under the hammer at prestigious London auction house Bonham’s (see yesterday) the council of Tower Hamlets has declared that work on buildings in its area are to be treated as vandalism and removed. The council were asked if they had instead considered selling off the artwork/graffiti (delete as you choose) to use to raise money for local services but said they hadn’t, despite the fact some works by Banksy have gone for as much as £300, 000, although they didn’t rule out doing so in the future (assuming they haven’t removed them all by that point, presumably). It does raise an interesting question though of just what visual art is acceptable: what is graffiti and what is considered art? Much of Banksy’s work is graffiti by its very nature, but does that automatically mean it is vandalism? The art world obviously considers it to be art and so do some pretty wealthy collectors, the council doesn’t. I’d be more interested in the opinion of the people who live or work in or next to the buildings the work is on. (source: BBC) Print this Story Send to a Friend [...]