I have the same reaction to Banksy, and figure he and his audience just have to be in on the joke? I can’t discount there’s some layered irony going on in conversation between the artist and the intellectual / capitalist / trend-setting elite that are his effective patrons.

“I remember when all this was trees” [1] is maybe the best example. Detroit hasn’t been “trees” in something like two centuries. Platitudes doused in treacle.

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2015/10/01/ba...