After a 15-month recess, Banksy is finally back to work with some high-class art in the area around Kyiv, Ukraine.
–
The official video from the visit to Ukraine can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grC38EdcyMM
Author: R.A.
A chronological Banksy retrospective
All these 100% fake Banksy exhibitions. 22 August 2022
There are three types of Banksy exhibitions:
1) Firstly, we have the official exhibitions, which Team Banksy organises. Some of them are group shows, and some are exclusively Banksy. Banksy posted a list of his major exhibitions on his website in 2018:
Labeled as ‘REAL’ in the column to the left:
- Walled Off Hotel, 2017
- Dismaland, 2015
- Better Out Than In, 2013
- Banksy vs Bristol Museum, 2009
- Village Pet, 2008
- Cans Festival, 2008
- Barely Legal, 2006
- Crude Oils, 2005
- Turf War, 2003
Since posting this list in 2018, you can add the Gross Domestic Product from 2019 and the Cut & Run from 2023.
2) Unauthorised exhibitions with authentic works are well-curated displays of special edition screen prints, canvases, and other unique materials, all with a Certificate of Authenticity issued by the Pest Control Office. The MOCO Museum in Amsterdam has an excellent, but unauthorised, permanent Banksy exhibition. Another one featuring authentic pieces is the touring exhibition Art of Banksy, last seen in Covent Garden, London. Former agent Steve Lazarides initially curated the Art of Banksy.
Two other touring exhibitions with authentic artwork are Banksy: The Art of Protest, which was previously titled “Genius or Vandal?” and Building Castles in the Sky. These exhibitions source their pieces from serious, long-term collectors. One can assume they are not very popular with the Banksy camp, but they are honest and well-executed exhibitions.
3) Then we have the fake exhibitions. There are several ongoing exhibitions around the world with 100% fake Banksy artwork, squeezing out the exhibits mentioned above. They have no insurance or cost of sourcing the art, as they only display fakes. Typically, these fake exhibits consist of bad reproductions of street art and shoddy copies of his most iconic canvases and screen prints. The organisers often promote the fake studio pieces as being authentic. To make it even more fake and confusing, one of these shady operators has copied the name of The Art of Banksy from the exhibit mentioned above.
The following photos are from the 100% fake but well-attended exhibit The Mystery of Banksy – A Genius Mind in Malmö, Sweden:
Photos from the 100% fake Banksy exhibition The Mystery of Banksy – A Genius Mind in Malmö, Sweden. Photos: R.A.
Banksy drops t-shirt in support of defendants in the Colston case. 11 December 2021
In his own words:
“Next week the four people charged with pulling down Colston’s statue in Bristol are going on trial. I’ve made some souvenir shirts to mark the occasion. Available today 11th December from various outlets in the city (all proceeds to the defendants so they can go for a pint). One per person, £25 each plus VAT. Details on the Ujima Radio breakfast show from 9am.”
A few hours later, the first Colston tees started popping up on eBay at £ 1,250 apiece. At 4 PM, Banksy’s PR woman Jo Brooks communicated: “Banksy t-shirt drops in Bristol have now sold out.”
Photos: Ebay.com and @jobrookspr
The Walled Off Hotel reopens. 4 December 2021
It has been closed for 20 months, but today The Walled Off Hotel posted a hopeful message on Facebook:
“We are pleased to inform you that the hotel doors are open for visits and overnight stays as of today. The museum is still closed due to some maintenance work. Welcome everybody.”
The hotel´s website is receiving bookings again: https://walledoffhotel.com
There seem to be some novelties on the ground floor. The section with CCTV cameras has moved to the left of the reception, where the “Mediterranean Seaview” triptych hung before it was donated to charity. Another new piece is the wood-carved model of Jerusalem’s Old Town made by the late Tawfiq Salsaa. The model was on display at Santas Ghetto in 2007 and also at Banksy vs Bristol Museum in 2009.
Banksy donates Oscar Wilde stencil to Reading Council. 4 December 2021
The donation was made public on December 4 at an exhibition curated by Grayson Perry at Bristol Museum. Banksy contributed the original stencil for the piece he painted on the wall of Reading GAOL prison in March 2021. The idea is that the Reading Council now sells the stencil and uses the proceeds to turn the derelict prison into a permanent art centre. It’s expected to fetch up to GBP 10 million in a private sale. In Banksy’s own words:
“I had very little interest in Reading until I was on a rail replacement bus service that went past the jail. It’s rare to find an uninterrupted 500m-long paintable surface slap bang in the middle of a town; I literally clambered over the passenger next to me to get a closer look. I promised myself I’d paint the wall even before I knew what it was. I’m passionate about it now, though. Oscar Wilde is the patron saint of smashing two contrasting ideas together to create magic. Converting the place that destroyed him into a refuge for art feels so perfect we have to do it.”
Banksy paints rat on the set of The Outlaws. 10 November 2021
“We can confirm that the artwork at the end of The Outlaws was an original Banksy, and that Christopher Walken painted over that artwork during the filming of this scene, ultimately destroying it,” a spokesperson for the BBC said.
From BBC’s website:
“The Outlaws, written and directed by Stephen Merchant, stars Hollywood veteran Walken as one of a group of minor criminals refurbishing a building for their community service. The last episode sees his character uncover the Banksy rat and two spray cans behind some wooden boards, and ask his supervisor if he should paint over it. The probation officer is looking the other way so doesn’t realise it’s a Banksy and tells him all graffiti must be painted over, which he does.”
Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-59236187
“Love is in the Bin” sells for £18.6 million at Sotheby’s. 14 October 2021
Love is in the Bin is certainly one of the most talked-about pieces of art in recent times. It’s also a genuinely multi-genre piece of art, having evolved from a regular painting into performance art and, finally, into conceptual art. An accurate representation of what Banksy is today?
Banksy confirms ten works in Norfolk and Suffolk, UK. 13 August 2021.
After a five-month recess, Banksy is back at it with ten brilliant pieces in Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft, two adjacent towns on the eastern coast not far from Norwich. The pieces went up around 6 August but were confirmed a week later, on 13 August.
–
The video of Spraycation:
Another trademark setback for Banksy. 19 May 2021
The EU’s trademark court, EUIPO (European Union Intellectual Property Office), ruled against Banksy’s struggle to protect his iconic images from being reproduced on shoddy merchandise.
The present case was about the Laugh Now image, which Banksy’s handling agent, Pest Control Office (PCO), registered as a trademark in November 2018. A year later, a UK-based greeting card company, Full Colour Black Limited, applied for the cancellation of the trademark. EUIPO has now ruled in favour of the greeting card company and decided that the Laugh Now trademark is “invalid in its entirety.” In September 2020, EUIPO invalidated Love is in the Air (or Flower Thrower) as a trademark. And there are more trademark disputes to come.
The main argument in the ruling is that a trademark holder must actively market and sell products with the trademark. EUIPO considers that Banksy and PCO haven’t done that: “From an examination of the evidence filed by both parties, it would appear that at the time of filing of the application for invalidity, the proprietor (or Banksy) had never actually marketed or sold any goods or services under the contested trademark.” Banksy’s GDP, a selling exhibition in Croydon in October 2019 ( www.grossdomesticproduct.com ) was an attempt to prove to the EUIPO that Banksy does indeed sell products under the disputed trademarks. But the EUIPO considers the GDP exhibition a way to circumvent the law and not a genuine effort to sell trademarked goods.
The greeting card company didn’t waste much time after the EUIPO ruling. Screenshots from www.fullcolourblack.com
In one section of the ruling, EUIPO shows an evident lack of knowledge: the EU’s trademark court alleges that Banksy “for the most part paints graffiti on other people’s property rather than to paint it on canvases or his own property”. What about the 1000+ studio pieces? Many of them are canvases. Or the printmaking, the art shows, the pranks, and the whole narrative?
Game Changer canvas sold for £16.8 million at Christie’s. 23 March 2021
After a 20-minute bidding duel, the hammer landed at GBP 14,400,000. With the Buyers Premium, the buyer has to cough up GBP 16,758,000 – a new auction record for a Banksy canvas. The seller is NHS and the Southampton University Hospital. According to the lot sheet from Christie’s: “The proceeds will be used to support the wellbeing of University Hospital Southampton staff and patients.”
Banksy unofficial 