He’s world famous but still a mystery – Banksy, the Bristol-born and to this day anonymous graffiti artist and painter, known for challenging the boundaries of the art market, who has been causing a sensation with his work for many years. “The Mystery of Banksy – A Genius Mind” is a brand new show in honour of the art icon!
The new exhibition, which will be shown for the first time, documents the entire creative period to this day with more than 150 motifs of the street art artist: graffiti, photographs, sculptures, video installations and prints on various materials such as canvas, fabric, aluminum, forex and plexiglass which were reproduced and collected especially for this exhibition. A specially produced video documentation sheds light on the most important career stages.
In an elaborate and unique setting, the exhibition provides a comprehensive overview and insight into the entire work of the exceptional artist. According to Banksy's motto "Copyright is for losers ©TM", this hommage is not officially authorized.
Banksy
Banksy, who touches people with his ironic, political but always poetic works, is an underground fighter, king of street art and even a hotel operator. When the city of Bristol had its citizens vote in 2009 whether Banksy works should be removed from the cityscape, 97 percent decided against it. A clear vote for his art. Banksy is a star far beyond the boundaries of the art market. Back in 2010, Time Magazine put him on their list of the 100 most influential people in the world for the first time, alongside personalities such as Barack Obama, Steve Jobs and Lady Gaga.
In the meantime, the phantom of the art world has long since made art history. Millions, and amongst them also in the classical sense less art-savvy people, know and admire his works.
In particular, it is his recent work such as the painting "Game Changer" as a dedication to the hospital staff in Southampton or his guerrilla action with the world-famous rats in the London Underground that made him increasingly popular. Many of his works have also found their way into everyday commercial life. The question of whether street art can be commercialised is written on another paper or in for discussion. Can his art be exhibited or can street art in general be shown in a museum or in galleries? After all, Banksy is also synonymous with rejecting commerce. And yet his messages should reach everyone!
Spectacular promotions and auctions
With his murals, Banksy writes art history in his very own way: he continually sprays unsettling images and texts on facades, subways, public squares, surfaces and objects - logistically sophisticated with a lot of preparatory work, spying and guarding the process. Meanwhile, millions in sales are achieved with his salable works. The 2018 auction of one of his best-known works, "Girl with Balloon", was spectacular and sensational: Shortly after it was sold at the Sotheby's auction in London, the picture self-destructed on the spot, with the lower part being cut into strips by a shredder hidden in the frame. Before that, the original had been auctioned for the equivalent of 1.2 million euros. Up to this point, the record price for a Banksy work was the equivalent of around 1.7 million euros, which was achieved at an auction in New York in 2008.
In 2019, the 2009 oil painting "Devolved Parliament", the British Parliament populated by monkeys, landed again at Sotheby's in London and achieved a record price of 9.9 million pounds (11.1 million euros). Banksy himself then wrote on Instagram: "Too bad it's not mine anymore." Banksy sold the picture in 2011.
A triptych on the refugee crisis entitled "Mediterranean Sea View 2017" brought in the equivalent of 2.4 million euros in 2020, twice as much as expected. The artist donated the money to a Palestinian hospital.
'Show Me the Monet', Banksy's tongue-in-cheek reinterpretation of a Monet masterpiece, fetched £7.6million (€8.4million) in 2020. The idyll that prevails in Monet's work about "The Japanese Bridge" becomes an illegal rubbish dump in Banksy's work, with discarded rubbish bobbing amidst the water lilies. Banksy had already painted the oil painting in 2005 and shown it in a gallery exhibition.
The artist set a new record in March 2021: his picture "Game Changer", which he secretly hung in the hallway of a hospital in Southampton in May 2020 and dedicated to the hospital staff with the words "Thank you for everything you do", went under the hammer at Christie's auction house and fetched an incredible price of almost 17 million pounds (almost 20 million euros). As explicitly requested by Banksy, the proceeds should benefit the entire British health service NHS. The picture shows a little boy who threw away his superhero characters Batman and Spiderman and is now playing with a new favorite character – a nurse with surgical mask and cape.
Banksy last broke his own record in October 2021. The re-auctioned "Love is in the Bin" brought 18.5 million pounds (equivalent to around 21.6 million euros) - i.e. the shredded "Girl with Balloon", which, as mentioned above, had been sold already in 2018. To this day, it is not known who bought the work of art for the new record sum.
