In February 2007, Sotheby’s presented seven works by Banksy in a sale of contemporary art. “Bombing Middle England” (2001), an acrylic-and-spray-paint stencil on canvas, featuring a trio of retirees playing boules with live shells, was estimated to bring between sixty and a hundred thousand dollars. It sold for two hundred thousand. (“Bombing” is slang for writing graffiti.) Last month, a painting titled “Space Girl and Bird” sold at Bonham’s for five hundred and seventy-five thousand, a Banksy record. Ralph Taylor, a specialist in the Sotheby’s contemporary-art department, said of Banksy, “He is the quickest-growing artist anyone has ever seen of all time.” Banksy responded to the Sotheby’s sale by posting a painting on his Web site. It featured an auctioneer presiding over a crowd of rapt bidders, with the caption “I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit.”
[Cheyenne Westphal, chairman for contemporary art in Europe at Sotheby’s, recalls: “My first experience with him was in October, 2004, when he left a piece outside a party we were throwing for Damien Hirst.” It was a rat, holding up a placard that read, “You lie.”]
Sources
New Yorker, May 14, 2007, p. 55
