After having this week had to open a surprise pop-up “Gross Domestic Product” faux store installation in a vacant shop featuring the stab vest designed for Stormzy at Glastonbury (Latest Picks 29th Jun. 2019) in the rapper’s hometown of Croydon due to a legal dispute with a greeting cards company contesting his trademark to his art (dailymail.co.uk):
Banksy MPs as chimpanzees painting sells for £9.9m (bbc.co.uk).
A painting by Banksy showing the House of Commons overrun with chimpanzees has sold at auction for just under £9.9m.
Being 13ft wide and reminding the street artist can do much more then stenciling and selling for five times its estimate at Sotherby’s London:
Banksy reacted on Instagram, saying it was a “record price for a Banksy painting” and ‘shame I didn’t still own it”.
Nine times his previous auction record for Keep It Spotless at Sotheby’s New York in 2008 and although created for the Banksy takeover of the Bristol Museum in 2009 highly topical at present:
The painting’s anonymous owner lent it to the museum earlier this year to mark both the exhibition’s 10th anniversary and Britain’s original planned exit from the EU on 29 March.
Updated 17th October 2019
And back to that pop-up store and whether it is about trademarks, another anti-art stunt or indeed both simultaneously:
Why is Banksy vetting the customers of his online store? (bbc.co.uk).
Well, technically nothing is actually bought at the store with the items only being on display, the doors never opened and purchased online with the proceeds—ranging from £10 mugs and signed spray paint cans to Stomzy’s traditional English waistcoat “updated for modern times” stab vest going for a relative snip at £850—going towards buying a new migrant rescue boat to replace the one confiscated by Italian authorities but…
But as ever with the artist, there is a twist—he’s vetting potential buyers and wants to shut out art dealers.
Everyone must answer a question on the site to explain why art matters.
With an independent judge selecting which of the applications are most “apt and original”.
The artist said: “We can't ever weed out all the people who just want to flip for profit, but we can weed out the unfunny ones.”
Although with small print declaring a right to not fulfill an order if the buyer advertises the item for resale before it’s dispatched, or if they suspect it will be afterwards.
Recent/related stories
- Banksy made the stab-proof vest that Stormzy wore at Glastonbury 2019 (Latest Picks 29th June 2019)
- Speculation mural at Extinction Rebellio’s Marble Arch base camp is by Banksy (Latest Picks 26th April 2019)
- Banksy fake banknote artwork joins British Museum collection (Latest Picks 1st February 2019)
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