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Banksy Art Sale in Central Park [video]
- thomaspaine 13y agoIt's a cool experiment but not altogether surprising right? The provenance of a piece of artwork, and other rare goods, is arguably more important than the art itself. Especially in the case of artwork which is easily reproducible and copied. If you think that's idiotic then ask yourself if you were given the opportunity to buy the first original Apple 1 or an exact replica, how much more would you be willing to pay over the replica? If the amount is greater than zero, then you're admitting that you're really buying an experience and set of emotional states in addition to a physical good.
- jmah 13y agoPerhaps I want the original because other people value it more, such that its value is more likely to increase over the replica. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_good (credit to dbond)
- alwaysinshade 13y ago"If the amount is greater than zero, then you're admitting that you're really buying an experience and set of emotional states in addition to a physical good." Absolutely, and I think that's the message being conveyed by Banksy. In a similar project he erected pieces in undisclosed locations throughout the English countryside - their existence only documented in pictures on his website. That way money is removed from the equation while the message remains.
- the_cat_kittles 13y agoI feel like no matter what you are doing, you are buying experience and emotional states. The point is the cause of these particular emotional states is kind of silly.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- rfnslyr 13y agoWho cares? I wouldn't pay $5 for that garbage, regardless who it is. Who the hell is Banksy? Guess I'm not edgy enough for this art.
- _delirium 13y agoThank you for your uninformed contribution to Hacker News!
- tlholaday 13y agoYou're Banksy, right?
- sschueller 13y agohttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt1587707/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1587707/
- feralmoan 13y agoI don't care about Banksy either and don't feel to despondent having known it was right there, its the kind of crap I'd just walk past every other day of the week. The question does beg though why the hell this is on the front page of HN (and how much was actually sold? I'm guessing not a lot!). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LP5-AjCCNw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LP5-AjCCNw
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago420 Dollars worth, according to the video.
- feralmoan 13y agoI dumped a lot more than that at Comiccon on people with actual talent (non derivative works). Banksy is a very strange thing that I really don't understand at all however I'm glad for him that he knows how to capitalize. Is the mindless kowtowing to rat stencils really just a tip of the hat to those without talent but a distinct political advantage? I can understand how some people would be into that, given the industry we're in.
- tvon 13y agoPrevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6544301 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6544301
- brianjolney 13y agosurprised so few stopped. $60 for a canvas knockoff of banksy isnt a bad price, let alone an original.
- TylerE 13y ago98% of people have no clue who Banksy is, certainly in the US.
- byw 13y agoThat number is probably a lot smaller near Central Park.
- GuiA 13y agoReally? Most of my 20-something american friends can't shut up about him.
- doorhammer 13y agoThis is by no means a quantitative study, but I live in the U.S. (in a fly-over state, none the less), have very little connection to the arts and every friend I can think of, off the top of my head, knows who banksy is. It's obviously a pretty self-selected population, and I mean, I haven't formally surveyed all of my friends, but there you have it, for what it's worth.
- 13y ago
- NathanKP 13y agoWow if his stand was near MOMA I probably walked right by it yesterday without noticing... I usually just ignore vendors around the park because 99% of the stuff being sold in that area is mass produced crap that has no value but to extract money from tourists.
- TylerE 13y agoand that's the art.
- timr 13y agoWell, also...he's messing with the people who value his stuff at ridiculous prices, but can't pick it out of a lineup. This is great not because it was anonymous (that was just a requirement -- if it weren't, he'd have been swamped by idiots), but because it illustrates the fundamental absurdity of the art "scene". It's a nice bit of mockery.
- alphakappa 13y agoIf you listen to his audio commentaries (most of his pieces in http://www.banksyny.com/ http://www.banksyny.com/ have a commentary on the page), he pokes fun at himself and at pretentious commentaries that often accompany art pieces.
- mjn 13y agoReminds me of this experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Bell#Washington_Post_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Bell#Washington_Post_ex...
- elyase 13y agoMore proof of the irrationality of the art market and how artwork is priced. Reminds me of [1]. [1] http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/53857118493/is-wine-bullshit http://blog.priceonomics.com/post/53857118493/is-wine-bullsh...
- dbond 13y agoIts called positional good. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_good
- stormbrew 13y agoI wonder how many fakes will show up on ebay now.
- arnoldwh 13y agoI hate to say it, but if I ran an art stand, I'd put up a few around central park right now. Wouldn't be surprised to see some stands going up to make money off the "halo effect" here.
- inmygarage 13y agoI would like to know where this $750K number is coming from. Generally Banksy originals of this kind are priced closer to low five-figures, but if someone has inside knowledge here please share. This article puts the value at around 20K pounds: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/banksy-sells-original-paintings-worth-2368651 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/banksy-sells-origina...
- fennecfoxen 13y agoAnyone else take a look at that sort of price tag and ponder whether they're in the wrong business? :P
- adventured 13y agoIt's amazing what top-shelf reputation is worth in almost any industry.
- ScotterC 13y agoYou can price something for any amount. Whether it sells at all or in vast quantities is another matter :)
- softbuilder 13y agoYes, and all you have to do is be a genius! See also: Step 3.
- tagabek 13y agoCould this price be the estimated value for all of the pieces put together?
- threeseed 13y agoI collect street art as my hobby and Banksy originals are much, much higher than low 5 figures for an original. Usually it's that amount of money for a print edition run of 150/200. That said it is a supply/demand game and these aren't as intricate or interesting as his other pieces.
- whiddershins 13y agoContext is everything.
- unhappyhippie 13y agoI think, and I am not an expert by far, that this just shows what the market value of those art pieces are when removed from their context. You won't pay more than $30-60 for it unless you are told otherwise by someone of authority - an art critic or a market of affluent and competing buyers motivated by various reasons. There is also the fact that he did it in NY, where $60 is acceptable to many buyers. The sales would have been diffirent in rural Alabama or New Delhi.
- georgeoliver 13y agoIt's interesting to compare this to the Joshua Bell (live) 'performance' cited in @mjn's comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6544810 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6544810) considering that Banksy generally makes stencil art. I suppose the performance here was not about the art products at all.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y agoI probably wouldn't have bought anything, and instead assumed that the guy was selling ripoffs.
- brianbreslin 13y agohas anyone revealed who he is yet?
- estel 13y agoIt's a pretty open secret, but not really.
- TheLegace 13y agoIf your are all interested in Banksy I'd urge you to watch a film that he accidentally was forced to make about Street Art and himself, well let's say because the original Director...well you will see. It's called Exit Through The Gift Shop, I watched on Netflix. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0b90YppquE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0b90YppquE I've always been a fan of Banksy's work. Especially the work he did at the dividing wall on both sides in the West Bank and Israel. http://www.stencilrevolution.com/banksy-art-prints/flying-balloons-girl/ http://www.stencilrevolution.com/banksy-art-prints/flying-ba...
- alwaysinshade 13y ago"I've always been a fan of Banksy's work. Especially the work he did at the dividing wall on both sides in the West Bank and Israel." And this is why I roll my eyes a little when people deride Banksy (not necessarily on HN - rather in face to face discussions) as boring artistically, politically, or as some kind of a sell-out. His works use the environment they're placed in to great effect (e.g. Bethlehem), use props (higher risk, more planning required, more interest generated) and are messages rather than trademarks (e.g. King Robbo). And when someone drops the tired line that he copies others like Blek Le Rat; when you've had a go at making a stencil you quickly realise that you're limited by the medium (stencils can convey only so much detail), thus similarities arise. It's the message that's important, not the piece itself.
- adnam 13y agoAccording to _Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall_ he came up with the idea of using stencils when he was hiding from the police and saw stencilled letters sprayed on the bottom of a truck.
- icelancer 13y ago>If your are all interested in Banksy I'd urge you to watch a film that he accidentally was forced to make about Street Art and himself... Maybe. That's the beauty of the movie. While he and the filmmakers insist it's a "real" movie, it could easily have been a hoax. Which belies a deeper meaning.
- nilved 13y agoThe crazy underspray is uncharacteristic of Banksy. It looks like the artwork was intentionally made to look like ripoffs.
- notatoad 13y agoand the best part: he doesn't make any mention of identifying characteristics of the "100% authentic" pieces he was selling. He's just given every banksy rip-off a huge boost in credibility, and destroyed the resale market for his own work.
- cookingrobot 13y agoEveryone who bought a piece is featured in that video. If you're going to buy one of these, you should probably make sure it's from one of those people.
- notatoad 13y agoUnless they sold it to somebody else. And they even avoid showing which pieces were bought, for the most part.
- estel 13y agoAuthenticating the provenance of Banksy stuff has always been a tough ask. The only way to definitively verify if streetart is genuine is to wait for it appear on his website, but for prints/canvases etc. he runs his own verification service [0]. [0] http://www.pestcontroloffice.com/ http://www.pestcontroloffice.com/
- colanderman 13y agoWtf? "Better Out Than In" is a stupid title. Please restore the original title, "Banksy sells original artwork for $60; valued at $750k". It's meaningful. /me wishes mod edits were logged with their username so they can be held accountable for stupid title edits like this.
- seiji 13y agoYou are the product. You get no say in your treatment here. Have a nice day and remember to Go+1 FaceLike ShareSpew us at every available opportunity.
- tomasien 13y agoThis is just flatly untrue here, and arguable on other networks. I get tired of the idea that each single individual is owed direct say in the features and behaviors of networks on the Internet. I think it's the same sentiment that makes users trash apps that are crashing ONLY for them, even when the owners of said apps reach out to explain the problem.
- graeme 13y agoI logged in just to upvote this sentiment. The original title was very clear. It let me decide whether or not I was interested. The new title makes no sense. I'd be highly likely to simply pass over it.
- afhof 13y agoIts more link-baity this way. Instead of knowing what the article is about before clicking on it, you are now forced to waste an extra 10 seconds.
- notatoad 13y agoexplanation for the overzealous mods: better out than in is the title of banksy's residency in new york, not of this specific piece. you've changed an accurate title to an inaccurate one.
- GFischer 13y ago420 USD for a day's work is almost ten times more than I make. Should I go to NYC and put up a stand? :) I'm glad for the buyers.
- po 13y agoThat's revenue. Those large canvases he's selling his 'spray art' on aren't exactly cheap, especially for the larger ones. Also you're going to be paying NYC prices for your food and transportation. But yeah overall, he didn't do too badly.
- mattmaroon 13y agoI'm curious what effect this will have on the prices of Banksy knockoff works.
- auggierose 13y agoI love it. This is like the Sci Fi novel (Heinlein I think, Lazarus Long) where I learnt that for the bank which issues the money, money really is just paper.
- sneak 13y agoThis is from The Tale of The Adopted Daughter, which appears in Time Enough for Love. It's a really beautiful piece and the ending gets me every single time.
- auggierose 13y agoYes, that's the one. I have to reread that book, it must have been more than 20 years ago I read it.
- sneak 13y agoSend me your email address. I can be reached at sneak@datavibe.net.
- jackschultz 13y agoOn a similar note, there is the story of Joshua Bell (a famous violinist) playing in a subway station and virtually everyone walked by. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Bell#Washington_Post_experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Bell#Washington_Post_exp...
- habosa 13y agoI find that much more amazing because you can hear how amazing Joshua Bell is as you walk by. You wouldn't hear it and say "that guy must be faking". It's common for NYC street vendors to sell art that is a copy of a more famous work, and there's no way to tell by looking.
- kbenson 13y agoIs it more amazing? I doubt I could tell the difference between an amazing violinist and a competent one. That may change given even an hour comparing between some great players and those that aren't as good at some time in my life, but I've never had that hour.
- kansface 13y agoThere is no way to tell the difference in a subway station, even for an instrument as loud as a violin. Moreover, no one goes to the subway to listen to music.
- sanoli 13y agoIf you're into this kind of music, you could tell, sure. He begin playing one of the hardest to master solo violin pieces of the repertoire. If I saw someone playing Bach's Chaconne on the street, I'd stop right away. There's no way street musicians would be able to play it like he did. Well, about a thousand people passed by, and seven stopped to listen. 0.7% of the sample isn't that bad. Plus, he made 50 bucks in less than an hour.
- rtkwe 13y agoYeah that's the qualm I've always had with that 'experiment' in a subway you're on your way to do something else, usually on a time crunch. Add on the noise and the fact that most people couldn't tell an amazing concert level performer from a simply good performer and the result is foregone.
- zenmaker 13y agoI'm a fan of Banksy's work. But a huge part of it's appeal at this point goes beyond a visceral response to the piece and gets wrapped up in social currency. "Come see my stencil art" doesn't really pull like "you see my new Banksy?" That's actually not even a statement about Bansky, in truth, it's about the way the art world has evolved in general.
- rebelnz 13y agoSo it seems a few people did get lucky - http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/kiwi-unwittingly-buys-80k-worth-banksy-art-5647597 http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/kiwi-unwittingly-buys-80k-worth...
- kuldeep_kap 13y agois that banksy in the video?
- estel 13y agoNot a chance.
- neilmiddleton 13y ago"When you go to an art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires." – Banksy