You might recall recently the BBC mentioned an initiative to try and ‘officially’ authenticate works by the guerrilla artist Banksy for auction, because many art buyers had effectively been hoodwinked into buying fakes before – obviously authentication of a work is pretty hard when the artist keeps themselves hidden. However it now transpires that a number of Banksy works at auction failed to sell, or were withdrawn from sale when bids turned out to be far below what the sellers expected; auction house Lyon and Turnbull has blamed Banksy’s refusal to authenticate the work. However the dreadful economic climate – which didn’t seem to affect the ridiculous mega-bids on the recent Damien Hirst auction – is also being blamed as a number of other contemporary artist’s works also failed to sell. The self portrait in lipstick and blood by Kate Moss mentioned recently did sell but for much less than was expected. I do, however, like a comment attributed to Banksy on the subject of the many fake works passed off as his art: “He would encourage anyone wanting to purchase one of his images to do so with extreme caution, but does point out that many copies are superior in quality to the originals.” (via the BBC)
Tue, Sep 30, 2008
Art and animation