Myth Busting Banksy | Hacker News Reader

Myth Busting Banksy

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> Score one for Banksy, though there are many other ways he could have protested if they wanted to make the point without benefiting financially from the protest.

How did Banksy profit from this? The value went up after the sale..

The only other point in the article that I disagree on is the part about why Banksy's piece was auctioned last. He compares it to the random chance of being last and says that it is very very unlikely that it would randomly be last. As if the order is_ ever random in an auction. Obviously we need to know about the other pieces in the auction. Maybe the Banksy piece was last because it was expected to sell for the most, nothing to do with any gimmicks. Asserting that it's either "on purpose" or "completely random" is a bit silly, there's clearly something in-between.

> How did Banksy profit from this?

He got his name in all the papers.

>He got his name in all the papers.

That's really great for up and coming artist.. Banksy..

If anyone’s upset about it being destroyed, I’m offering to draw new copies for 1 pound per piece. 5 for 4 pounds. For an extra 50p, I’ll even shred each one in a pretentious manner.

How does he profit from that?

The increase in Banksy's cultural cachet means that his next pieces sold at auction will likely be valued much higher than they would have been if this had not been in all the papers.

I can't say it's not a brilliant piece of art. It's quite similar to Duchamp's ready-mades[1] in that it's a critique of art itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)[1]

Hia other stuff will sell for more because his name is better known? There is almost always profit to be made from being in the news.

That might be the profit in and of itself.

I bet Thomas Pynchon isn't just in it for the money. He probably likes the idea of people enjoying his books, too.

It's called PR

He bought it by proxy.

The art world is mostly about building your reputation to increase the value of future works you make.

I wonder, like mentioned elsewhere in the art community, if this stunt will have the opposite assumed effect: that the artwork will be more valuable now than it was before. Since now it is a "double-Banksy" in a sense. And if others and I can think of that outcome, most definitely so can Banksy. And maybe that is the real critique of the artworld:

That even if you destroy the art, the destroyed art is still worth millions. Simply because the art has detached itself from its meaning and origin, and has tilted towards who made the art.

If I was an art collector I would pay much more for the artwork now, for the simple reasons that

1. The girl with a balloon print was not the only one of its kind. There are other variations. It was not so unique before.

2. This is the only one, the first one, even the first (prominent?) artwork that "destroyed itself"

3. It is still an artwork. It did not destroy itself completely, but stopped in the middle of the destruction process. Doesn't it look great now, sticking only half outside the frame? Any museum of contemporary art would die for having this. And only this, not a similar one or the next one that destroys itself.

> 2. This is the only one, the first one, even the first (prominent?) artwork that "destroyed itself"

I don't know if you mean specifically Banksy work, but there's a whole discipline of auto-destructive art: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-destructive_art

A well known example is the poem Agrippa by William Gibson (yes, that one) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrippa_(A_Book_of_the_Dead)

Did not know this, thanks. Maybe we can agree that Bansky's auto-destructive artwork is the one with the best publicity.

oh, for sure.

Auto-destructive art is kind of misnamed though, I think. It's generally art created through destructive acts, rather than art that destroys itself.

Is there any guarantee it won't destroy more of itself later? Does anybody know how the shredder in the frame was controlled?

Even better, if it was not a shredder, but something like a banknote printing device, the "destruction" would be reverseable.

Well, it wasn't destroyed really. Whether intentional or not, the fact that it stopped halfway trough leaves a very symbolic work.

Had it actually shredded all the way trough and spit out 38 strips it wouldn't have been such an boost for the value.

Or had it been a cross cut shredder. :)

I'm not up on my Greek prefixes, but had the shreading completed it would become a 38-ptic, and you could fill a large sized wall with it. It wouldn't be as cool as stopped half way, but the halfway through image wouldn't be in people's minds to know what they were missing, either.

The Banksy art incubator just came up with a novel strategy for maximizing exposure of a startup artwork. MAU metric through the roof before IPO. Early investors very happy.

Oh it was definitely intended to make it more valuable - after all, it didn't go all the way through. It did so very much on purpose. If the intent was to destroy the piece it would've gone through all the way, or catch on fire, or something like that.

I think the main counter argument to it being worth more now is that it was apparently already Banky's most expensive piece to have sold. A less valuable piece might expect and increase, but it's not clear that that would happen with his most expensive piece. Also worth noting that it went for multiple times the expected price at this auction, which is somewhat suspicious.

> the opposite assumed effect

What effect did whom assume this would have? This seems like a cynical yet transparent attempt by Banksy to trade off his counterculture image to boost his artworks' value.

Please, by all means, examine these:

- Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard[1]

- The Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord[2]

- Hyperreality[3]

It is quite clear that Banksy is a poser. The artwork was not fully destroyed in a way that would reduce value.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Society_of_the_Spectacle

[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperreality

The point about it being too much of a coincidence that the Banksy piece was sold last, seems weak to me. Banksy was likely the most popularly known artist whose work was for sale, and it makes sense to me that they would put that last. A better analysis would have looked at how much all of the pieces sold for, as a proxy for fame. If lots of piece that sold earlier than Banksy's, sold for more, then that would be pretty suspicious. I'm guessing, though, that Banksy was the biggest name for sale, and I would not expect Sotheby's to put them for sale in a random order, but rather start with the lesser known artists/pieces first.

Of course, I don't know the art auction world, and maybe it happens the other way, and you do the big names first, I don't know. But I also can't find out from reading this analysis. One thing I'm pretty sure of, is they don't just assign the order randomly.

I like Banksy's work well enough, but the thing that has always bothered me about his persona is the collusion in the art and media world to maintain his supposed anonymity. I simply can't believe that there aren't large numbers of people who know exactly who he is, so why is he privileged by the media in this way?

Realistically, you can find out who he is by looking at his Wikipedia page. It's "unconfirmed" because there hasn't been an "official" confirmation, and his anonymity makes for a better story.

As soon as the real person behind is officially known, there is no more story, it's over.

I guess it's interesting (and lucrative) for the arts industry and the media to continue to play along.

Maybe at some point a real investigation media will take the subject and mark the end of the game.

Not necessarily, Jean-Michel Basquiat started out as an anonymous graffiti artist, who later revealed himself and did very well under his own name.

I simply can't believe that there aren't large numbers of people who know exactly who he is

Why not?

Indeed, I consider it quite likely this is possible. News and media are famous for copying and not doing own research. A logic result is that media keep copying "the anonymous Banksy" as some meme. And that hardly any budget is released to actually research the person behind the name. Defending your anonimity against the very few journalists that do their own research is probably much simpler than defending it against the supposed "hordes of media".

We've seen this with "Satoshi" too. And even worldfamous artists like Daft Punk keep a reasonable privacy this way.

Well Daft Punk are different. They are very well known, and they don't hide their identities any more than a voice actor for a cartoon is hiding their identity.

Satoshi as far as I know is still unknown, and while there are some pretty good guesses, they will most likely never be more than that.

Possibly of interest to you: https://medium.com/cryptomuse/how-the-nsa-caught-satoshi-nak...

I honestly don't think anyone cares. The mask is the persona so to speak. The psudeoanon nature is nessarry when illegally spraypainting buildings in the name of art. But if I start selling my work as banksy, someone will have to claim copywright, its not impenetrable.

I disagree with the author's conclusion that Sotheby's will lose any credibility from this incident.

Modern art is crazy. A painting that shreds itself is pretty mundane by contemporary standards. If the shredding was an integral part of the work as intended by the artist, then Sotheby's has done a great job showcasing all the features of the work. Now that they've demonstrated an ability to handle unconventional works like this in a controller manner, I wouldn't be surprised if even more elaborate contraptions that blur the line between art and technology begin to come up for auction at Sotheby's.

Besides, the shredded painting will likely fetch a much higher price if it ever comes back to the auction.

Does Sotheby's have an API? I got some stupid easy ideas and in the worst case no one buys it.

"This balloon inflates the more you bid it up. Eventually it pops. Its an allegory for the housing bubble"

That reminds me of this work (2009) by artist Ellie Harrison who made a vending machine which dispensed snacks any time the word recession popped up on the BBC news feed: https://www.ellieharrison.com/vendingmachine/

If only you were famous. You could have made millions from that idea.

How does one get famous making art? Magic?

You have to cultivate a ten year reputation in the art gossip community before you can make money at that. An artist's trendiness is a similar bubble.

The very first point in the article is about the capability of a wireless device to last ten years on battery charge, and the argument in favor is based on current technology ("I'm amazed at how little power is used by the wireless processors I'm working on now.")

The real question is about the wireless processors designed 13+ years ago (longer than the painting to allow time for it to hit production).

This thing was supposedly designed and enabled before the iPhone was released. The author does not present a credible argument.

He also points out that "Banksy's people" had physical access to the painting very shortly before the auction.

I think it's much more likely that a battery was inserted at that time.

I know nothing about the art world, but would "Pest Control" be given unsupervised access to the painting prior to the auction? Especially given the artist and his reputation.

The processor comment is a bit irrelevant, but the argument is about the batteries, not the processor. Besides which, he immediately presents a couple of other theories.

It's unlikely this has been sitting for 12 years. EEV did a bit of an analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdKdQWhlNTY

I like this analysis from EEVBlog more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdKdQWhlNTY

Nice one. Here is the "Strip Box" video he showed at the end: https://vimeo.com/92609964

I liked this take on what it would be like living with banksy: https://medium.com/@electrolemon/the-year-of-living-with-ban...

There's only so much of his shtick that I can stomach.

That seems far fetched, and also pretty entertaining. Far better than my old housemates who would fuck in the kitchen and throw knives when drunk.

It's obviously fiction. (But Banksy might well be the author.)

Yeah, I'd wondered wether it was written by him.

That's pretty funny, reminds me of Ayn Rand Reviews Children's Movies: https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/ayn-rand-review...

I doubt that article is real.

Between being written by a comedy writer and the unlikely scenario, it seemed clear to me that this was satire, poking fun at banksy's relentless shtick.

Not long ago I was introduced to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blek_le_Rat

who apparently shared a similar sense of style

Artists like Banksy are well into their time, that’s why they are so successful once they achieve global exposure. Shredding your own work remotely at Sotheby’s just after their auction is as artistic as political you can get in the UK these days, that is just a stunt like the Brexit, the fake multiculturalism, the fake social elevator, the fake establishment and so on.

I am not buying into the video posted by Bansky. The knives have an awkward angle, how are they supposed to cut?

I think he added something else to the frame afterwards. Something like this banknote printing machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE7qHz_cVew

The EEVBlog YouTube channel (someone else already linked it) covered the implausible shredding mechanism in the Banksy video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdKdQWhlNTY

In addition to the impossible angle, the position also does not fit a plausible paper path, and you can also see the curvature indicative of being stuck in the roller of a traditional shredder for days/weeks/months on the bottom of the paper coming out.

Makes you wonder how the previous owner could have not noticed the shredder. "There is a slot at the bottom of my insanely valuable Bansky artwork's frame and I can see parts of a machinery through it, but it probably doesn't mean anything."

It'd already been noted that the frame was unusually thick

The video was made by Banksy. Why do people trust it?

Did you read TFA? The suggestion is that the artwork was partially pre-shredded, with the shreds hooked over the blades, and then it's just a case of pushing the rest of the piece through the blades. Like "dragging scissors through paper" once the cut is already started.

The one question I had, which the article didn't go into, was shredding only half the painting intended, or was it a malfunction?

Definitely intentional. The owner purchased a piece of performance art, one that involved Banksy, his entourage, a (probably complicit) Sotheby's and millions of comments and reactions on the internet. The half-shredded painting is integral to the longevity of the performance. If it's ever displayed in a gallery, you can guarantee that there will be a constant video loop of the auction and internet reactions playing next to it.

The new owner also can't sell off the individual strips.

Intention. It stopped at a perfect point.

I didn't agree with you at first, but after seeing the painting out of its frame, I think you are right: https://1fuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/art-owner-shred...

I haven't seen anyone mention that, in the shredder video, the blades are all placed flat, parallel to the painting. I don't see how they could have cut anything in that orientation, unless the mechanism is tuned to score the paper by dragging it across the point. Or am I missing something?

Yeah, I assumed I must have missed a detail. Or Banksy is totally messing with us.

An angled razor makes more sense (think about how you shave)... less of a chance that it gets jammed if the paper is sliding over an angled razor rather than vertical.

EDIT: A deli slicer also a good example... it works on an angle... not like a chopsaw

It was convenient that the piece was the last one for the night. However, Banky's piece did have the largest gain from ceiling estimate to sale price. It wouldn't surprise me if the Sotheby's staff knew of this potentially dramatic gap and decided to put it at the end of the night. Combine that with the potential of Banksy pulling a stunt like this, and placing it last seems to be the more conservative option for the lineup.

    %     LOT  PRICE    ARTIST          WORK
    3.47%  67  1042000  Banksy          Girl With Balloon
    2.94%  66  1030000  Kaws            Again And Again
    2.42%  48  1450000  Georg Baselitz  Kopfkissen
    1.77%  29  1150000  Georg Baselitz  Ohne Titel (Der Neue Typ)
    1.71%  42  1450000  Lucio Fontana   Concetto Spaziale, Forma

I notice that the shredded portion doesn't line up with the part still in the frame in the photo. The top of the girl's head looks too far up and to the left to be part of the same picture.

That was my thinking, too, and it would indicate that the shredded and original picture are not one and the same. Thinking this further, if he actually used something like a banknote printing trick device, the whole process could be reversed at the next auction :)

Love this idea! I wonder if this thing is going to be x-rayed by the current owner though... Maybe he left a note in it to convince the owner to play along.

I did some measurements on stills and it appears to be well within the reason of lining up. Using a ruler and stills taken from same vantage point... the distance is very close.

That could just be perspective. The shredded portion is further back towards the wall, and the photo is taken at an angle.

You can totally hide a slot that is already open. A normal frame has some layering going on in the back anyways:

https://www.universityproducts.com/pub/media/wysiwyg/how-to-...

All it would take is a slot in the frame back and a bit more sturdy backing paper covering it. The backing paper that has to be not fixed on the bottom edge.

At no point did the author prove that the frame was the same one in the video. I really had a hard time reading after that. The sideways xacto blades would have trouble cutting canvas, even preshredded, at that angle. While the rest seems plausable, no further facts are offered save for "maybe 38" cuts maybe matching with the frame shown hastily in his vid. I was really hoping for something more concrete than the same pontificating.

The work is very likely NOT on canvas, but on paper.

"spray paint and acrylic on canvas" [1]

[1]http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2018/contempo...

Banksy is like the Malcolm Gladwell of art. He's really good but crossing over into the world of pop culture has garnered an unwarranted amount of scorn. I like Banksy and I like Malcolm Gladwell, both are really good at what they do.

Hmmm. This comparison is really challenges me.

I liken Gladwell to other mercenary concern trolls like David Brooks.

But in my rush to defend Banksy... I realize I have no idea who signs his checks. His schtick could also be just another troll. Bread and circus to keep the hoi polloi complacent.

Indeed, how could Banksy not be? Either by default or by design, result is the same.

Thanks. I relish these types of conundrums.

If Sotheby's was in on it, then the buyer must have been as well. Otherwise, they would open doors to a lawsuit.

Banksy is a sellout.

Why is it bad to make a profit from your artwork?

Well for being against capitalistic culture, the Banksy movement acts pretty capitalistic...I guess it's not about making a well-deserved profit, but more about being incoherent with your message.

Really at this point it has highlighted it is impossible to be mainstream and maintain the status quo. When you start putting out unique works on random buildings and people are willing to pay enough to cut out the wall and replace it for a windfall it is fundamentally impossible. The subversion is fundamentally lost. Even doing something akin to putting Gitmo in Disneyland to force people to confront crimes committed in their name while trying to escape would see it scavenged and sold. Given a choice between making random landowners richer and himself it becomes clear why.

Imo you can be against capitalism, but you still live in a capitalist society and need to somewhat conform to it in order to live. It's not like Britain is going to become communist any time soon.

It is not, but their whole act has been street art, and purposely making their art hard to obtain, and implying an anticapitolist bent. However its all kind of an act now, with hard to obtain art just raising the percived value. Brilliant, but contrary to the image many have of them.

Did he own the painting prior to the sale, or was it a private collector?

It isn't - except if one of your main messages is being against capitalism. His credibility is now zero.

Yes he is. Got no street cred.

Maybe he doesn't want or need street cred? He's just doing his thing.

If they (Sotheby's/security) let a device with metal, batteries and remote trigger in, how could one assume they won't let a bomb in there?

If they did it while knowing what is inside, it's fun and stuff. If they let this kind of stuff in without checking, this would be very bad... they should be sued over lack of inspection (they are experts!) and lack of security by the buyers and persons who were in the room.

The same way bombs don't get taken into almost any crowded place: the fact that vanishingly few people want to take bombs into crowded places.

I mean: these are experts, they sell stuff valuated at millions of $, they must inspect what they sell. It's not about about security at first: it's more about if the thing is authentic, if the thing is in good shape, if it will not break during transport or display, how to store/hang it properly, ...

After that, they must have been suspicious about the weight, the bottom hole, ... and must have done additional, more detailed checks, even a scanner to see what's inside. It's not like it was a simple piece of paper they had in hands, it's a million $ strange heavy thing.

Anyway, it shows very bad about them if they didn't see what was "wrong" with this piece.

They took it to "Banksy's people" to have it authenticated.

Because searching bulky artwork is meaningless security theater unless you're also X-ray scanning every person who enters the building.

Not every, but those that are not usual, that have some strange weight/properties for their kind. Or you'll some day let in a trojan horse...

I bet every person entering the building is security checked, you don't want anyone unexpected or with some paint or knife near 1 million $ stuff. Plus bag checks at least in places open to public have become usual today.

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