Street art ripples
Have you heard about Banksy? Everyone has heard about him, but not many people have seen him. Last October, he pulled off one of his biggest pranks. An artwork of his titled, Balloon Girl was sold in an auction at Sotheby’s in London for a record sum of £1.04 million. The gavel dropped to announce the sale of the picture, when an alarm sounded in the picture frame and the canvas passed through a shredder hidden within the frame, partially shredding the picture. Everyone was shocked. Banksy posted an image of the shredding on Instagram and captioned it “Going, going, gone…”
The auction house acknowledged that the self-destruction of the work was a prank by the artist. It received wide news coverage around the world, with one newspaper stating that it was “quite possibly the biggest prank in art history”.
So who is this person? He is an anonymous England-based street artist, vandal political activist, and film director. His street art is critical, sarcastic and ironic. His graffiti has a distinctive stenciling technique, almost like his signature. His art is not restricted to England alone but is apparent in many cities around the world.
Banksy says, he was inspired by 3D, a graffiti artist who later became a founding member of the English musical group Massive Attack.
A small number of Banksy’s works are officially, non-publicly, sold through Pest Control. His documentary film “Exit Through the Gift Shop” (2010) made its début at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. In January 2011, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary for the film. In 2014, he was awarded Person of the Year at the 2014 Webby Awards.
Here are some popular works by the artist…