The artistic community is continuing to raise money and awareness for the recent earthquakes in Haiti.
ABOVE’s has put up his latest stencil in Cuba. The piece is meant to raise awareness for the continuing struggles of people in Haiti who have been victims of the recent earthquakes.
ABOVE says:
Cuba is less than 90 miles away from Haiti making them very close neighbors. The young and courageous neighbor is embarking to Haiti to help out those who have fallen victim. The recent earthquakes in Haiti has taken over 230,000 innocent lives, wounded 300,000 and made 1,200,000 people homeless.
Please GET INVOLVED and help donate to send aid and resources to the people of Haiti.
Exit Through The Gift Shop is playing at the Berlin Film Festival today, and Banksy had a little video message for people before the screening.
Banksy Prints reports that Banksy said “I guess my ambition was to make a film that would do for graffiti art what ‘The Karate Kid’ did for martial arts — a film that would get every schoolkid in the world picking up a spray can and having a go…As it turns out, I think we might have a film that does for street art what ‘Jaws’ did for waterskiing.”
Banksy Prints also speculates that since the festival director has stated that Banksy is in town, maybe he will paint a few pieces in Berlin. I’d say there’s a pretty good shot of Banksy doing some painting while he’s in town, after all, if I’m not mistaken, there are no surviving Banksy paintings left in Berlin.
Sickboy‘s been in Bristol lately for the Bristol version of his Logopop show (Guillotine has some photos). Of course, he’s also painted a few pieces outside as well. These two pieces are a bit different from his usual street work, but I like them.
Armsrock has just posted some photos on his blog of his beautiful exhibition Zettelkasten at We Are Related in Copenhagen. The show is open until March 16th, so check it out if you’re in Copenhagen this month or next. Here’s a few of those pics:
It looks like Banksy‘s film Exit Through The Gift Shop is already helping boost the price of his artwork, even though it sounds like the film is more about Mr. Brainwash (whose prices somehow have not dropped to $0, yet). This week, there have been 5 Banksy pieces at auction in London, and almost all sold above the high estimate.
Why is there a Banksy print for sale at Sotheby’s instead of Dreweatts or Bonhams? Because it was a Kate Moss. An edition of just 50, these are probably the most sought-after of any of Banksy’s prints. They aren’t my favorite, but I’m just one guy and the market definitely disagrees with me on this one. The print was estimated to sell at £25-35,000. Including the buyer’s premium, it went for £46,850. The Kate Moss prints have sold for as much as £96,000 before, but this is probably the best price one has achieved since the recession hit.
Both originals at Sotheby’s were older works, and sold to benefit The Luggage Store Gallery. Bomb Hugger and Armoured Car were both estimated at £25-35,000. Bomb Hugger sold for £58,850 and Armoured Car reached £49,250.
Next up was the Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Auction on the 12th. They had an amazing Banksy canvas, You Told That Joke Twice. Christie’s estimated the piece at £100-150,000, and it sold for £169,250 including the buyer’s premium, which put the hammer price near the upper end of the estimate. This was the only Banksy piece this weekend not the exceed the high estimate.
Later that day, Phillips de Pury had their Evening Sale in Contemporary Art. Their Banksy was Vandalised oil #001, a fantastic crude oil. With a conservative estimate of just £60-80,000, the results here were outstanding. The painting sold for £121,250 including the buyer’s premium.
Now, as noted with the Kate Moss print, these aren’t the best auction results Banksy has ever had, and I don’t want to sound like that NYTimes article that said “The art market is once again shooting up like a rocket,” but the Banksy market at least seems on the road to recovery.
This is a while away, but I thought I’d mention that Dan Witz has a book coming out later this year.
In Plain View – 30 years of Artworks Illegal and Otherwise is the first and long overdue monograph on the work of Dan Witz. New York artist Dan Witz has been doing street art since the late 1970s. In his enduring street art career, he has specialized in a smaller, more intimate kind of street art. For Witz, a sense of wonder and curiosity are key. Strongly influenced by the changing cultural landscape of the New York City streets where he developed his craft, Witz has traveled the path from dark to light and back again. In the book, his wandering journey through the no-wave and DIY movements of New York‘s Lower Eastside of the 70‘s, the Reaganomics of the 80‘s to the flourishing of graffiti art in the new millennium is beautifully illustrated in 250 color photographs and narrated through an interview with the Wooster Collective. Whether stickers or paste-up silk-screened posters, conceptual pranks and interventions, or beautiful tromp l‘oeil paintings, Witz is inspired as much by the nature and subject of his art as by the mutating urban conditions in which the piece is executed. Not content with established boundaries between street and fine art, Witz seems intent on bursting contemporary art-world bubbles by refusing to confine himself to either. His monograph is a study of both the man and his art, with chapters chronicling the transformation of New York City from a once derelict Lower East Side to a shiny new Gotham.
The monograph is being published by Gingko Press and will be available from June 1st.
This is a seriously overdue book. Dan is just one of those names in street art that you have to respect. Usually, I’m not one to love tromp l‘oeil paintings, but Dan makes the style interesting and engaging by taking things a step further than most.
