Usually, 208,100.00 ($403,497.30) is normally a high but standard price for art work. But this piece isn’t your typical work of art nor was it sold by your typical art dealer. This piece of art is on a wall in London with Banksy’s name tagged on it, sold by the popular website, “eBay.” Also on the wall is a painter is painting the tag.
The graphitized wall was located on London’s Portobello Road, next to a falafel restaurant. It had drawn 69 bids on it before the auction ended. Not much else is mentioned about the bidder. The winning bid does not include the money that it will take to remove the wall, which is approximately 5,000 ($9,699.53) which will have to be added to his willing price.
Banksy is a renowned British graffiti artist, who paints as well, whose taggings and art appears all over the globe. He tags walls with messages of “Have a Nice Day” under graphitized soldiers with smiley faces. Banksy uses rats for many of his wall graffiti. Most of his art appears in his home area of Brixton, a section of London.
“When I was in London, I saw Banksy tags around,” senior Arianna Pelullo, an art major. “The next week, they would be chiseled off”.
Banksy’s art usually carries a point of anti-government and anti-capitalist. Some of his indoor art includes some controversial works like Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald holding hands with Kim Phúc, an infamous child Napalm victim from the Vietnam War. Usually, he tries to promote messages of peace, with such fame work that he did on the Israeli West Bank Barrier where he stenciled
“I respect his choice of civil disobedience,” said Pelullo. “He has now just had this explosion of fame.”
Additionally, he sometimes takes prints of famous paintings and uses aerosol cans to graffiti such items like gas masks or graffiti cans on them. Banksy then takes these paintings and puts them up in various famous museums such at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The revised art works go unnoticed for sometimes hours or even days.
Banksy’s art is considered controversial because it pushes the boundaries of what is called art and what isn’t. Graffiti is usually not considered art but many art critics are fans of his art and his principles and beliefs.