Banksy strikes again....

[Foolmewunz]

The Pieta is in the St. Pieter Cathedral, yes.
Absolutely stunning piece of art.

A painting like Catrame II by alberto Burri? Not so much.
Or Chagall, or this painting by James Ensor

The point is... the guards (number of, to be specific) are placed based on the values of the works. In a world where a middling Klee sells for two million, what sort of price would the Pieta get if it was on the market. They're not speaking to the value of the art as art, but the dollar value of the artworks. You don't put four guards at $200,000 bucks a year around a few pieces worth 75 to 100 thou each. You put guards in front of the Pieta, full time, as it's probably worth about ten million!

 

[erwinl]

The point is... the guards (number of, to be specific) are placed based on the values of the works. In a world where a middling Klee sells for two million, what sort of price would the Pieta get if it was on the market. They're not speaking to the value of the art as art, but the dollar value of the artworks. You don't put four guards at $200,000 bucks a year around a few pieces worth 75 to 100 thou each. You put guards in front of the Pieta, full time, as it's probably worth about ten million!

Exactly my point.
One is worth guarding extra, the other not.
Somehow the art not worth guarding extra is the modern stuff.

I mean. Have you seen that painting from James Ensor?

 

[Darat]

Exactly my point.
One is worth guarding extra, the other not.
Somehow the art not worth guarding extra is the modern stuff.

I mean. Have you seen that painting from James Ensor?

I think you are using a rather simplistic metric to measure value. From my Vatican visits I would say guards are used mostly in the older sections because they were not designed for modern survalance equipment. Other reasons are that there are "working" offices intermingled with the areas open to the public, this is especially true again in the older sections so guards are probably there to also make sure folk don't go astray. Plus when I was there I definitely saw more than one guard in the "modern" sections.

I'd also doubt the Vatican has contents insurance provided by an insurance company.

 

[Oystein]

... You put guards in front of the Pieta, full time, as it's probably worth about ten million!

You have got to be kidding!!! If the Vatican actually, literally put up the Pietà for an open auction, the super rich and the dictators would line up and shell out upwards 200 million. I can see a billion as plausible.

 

[TragicMonkey]

The Pieta has guards because an insane visitor once attempted to destroy it.

 

[Tolls]

This made me chuckle:
https://metro.co.uk/2018/10/08/4000...-owner-shredded-it-to-increase-value-8018715/

An art collector who owned a Banksy worth £40,000 has shredded it in an attempt to imitate the artist’s latest stunt – but has now made the piece almost worthless.

 

[ceptimus]

Accept that the knife blades were just for show, and the mechanism just rolled the real painting onto one roller while ejecting a pre-shredded replica from another roller.

You still have the problem of how the device was powered and triggered. Obvious way to trigger it would be to have some sort of radio receiver, or a mobile phone or pager or similar inside and then someone in the audience or watching via video could transmit the 'go' signal.

But it's difficult to design something that can run for many years, even in low-power receive mode, without depleting the batteries - and if you use mobile phone technology you have the problem of making sure that the contract for the 'receiver phone' stays alive.

You can't just call the phone to trigger the 'shred' event, as that would be triggered by spam calls or wrong numbers - so you'd need the 'phone' to be programmed to check for a call from a particular number, or have to receive and decode a 'trigger' text message, of similar. This would need the help of a very competent engineer - probably not the sort of thing an artist like Banksy could do himself.

Like I say, difficult to make something like that run on batteries for many years - so did it need to be recharged? Who was in on the secret so that they could periodically recharge the batteries, or fit new batteries? Where was the painting kept, prior to being transported to the auction house?

Also it's very convenient that the Auction house positioned the painting with nothing underneath to get in the path of the 'shredded painting' and that all the media cameras were pointed at the painting and rolling when the event took place. It all smells like a pre-arranged 'art event' to me.

 

[William Parcher]

It is not clear what the painting was one: canvas, paper, matte board? Some news articles say canvas, but I wouldn’t trust journalists to be accurate.

I'm seeing spray paint on canvas in lots of articles from reputable sources. That's probably right from the description in the auction catalog. Plus it's known to be from a limited series by the artist using that media.

Canvas is not the same as paper and the shredding might be more challenging.

 

[William Parcher]

Accept that the knife blades were just for show, and the mechanism just rolled the real painting onto one roller while ejecting a pre-shredded replica from another roller.

You still have the problem of how the device was powered and triggered. Obvious way to trigger it would be to have some sort of radio receiver, or a mobile phone or pager or similar inside and then someone in the audience or watching via video could transmit the 'go' signal.

But it's difficult to design something that can run for many years, even in low-power receive mode, without depleting the batteries - and if you use mobile phone technology you have the problem of making sure that the contract for the 'receiver phone' stays alive.

You can't just call the phone to trigger the 'shred' event, as that would be triggered by spam calls or wrong numbers - so you'd need the 'phone' to be programmed to check for a call from a particular number, or have to receive and decode a 'trigger' text message, of similar. This would need the help of a very competent engineer - probably not the sort of thing an artist like Banksy could do himself.

Like I say, difficult to make something like that run on batteries for many years - so did it need to be recharged? Who was in on the secret so that they could periodically recharge the batteries, or fit new batteries? Where was the painting kept, prior to being transported to the auction house?

Also it's very convenient that the Auction house positioned the painting with nothing underneath to get in the path of the 'shredded painting' and that all the media cameras were pointed at the painting and rolling when the event took place. It all smells like a pre-arranged 'art event' to me.

I think I see a sizable battery module of sorts. Couldn't there be large and numerous alkaline batteries that will work after many years? Anyway, they might not be as old as from 2006, and they could have been recharged if the seller was part of the prank. The piece also had an audible beeping alarm that started right before the shredding.

Sotheby's says that it was sold by the artist in 2006, but that it was actually a gift rather than a sale. Banksy gave it to somebody in 2006, or so it's said. He could have given it to a cohort with full knowledge of what would eventually happen at auction. They could lie and forge any paperwork about it being from 2006 and it might instead be pretty recently made.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Also it's very convenient that the Auction house positioned the painting with nothing underneath to get in the path of the 'shredded painting' and that all the media cameras were pointed at the painting and rolling when the event took place. It all smells like a pre-arranged 'art event' to me.

As I mentioned, the seller could have dictated how the painting was displayed for auction. I'm not sure where the videos come from, but some reports are that the video in the Bansky video came form the person who was detained under suspicion of activating the shredder.

Like I say, difficult to make something like that run on batteries for many years - so did it need to be recharged? Who was in on the secret so that they could periodically recharge the batteries, or fit new batteries? Where was the painting kept, prior to being transported to the auction house?

Maybe when the artwork was submitted for authentication, Bansky requested that it be sent to him for verification. At that point he replaced the batteries. Or maybe the original work didn't even have the shredder, just some weights in the frame. When he gets it for authentication, he pops open the frame and inserts the shredder.

As I said, there are all kinds of ways to pull off a trick. This trick was done mostly behind the curtain. We don't have much to go on other than speculation.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

I'm seeing spray paint on canvas in lots of articles from reputable sources. That's probably right from the description in the auction catalog. Plus it's known to be from a limited series by the artist using that media.

Canvas is not the same as paper and the shredding might be more challenging.

Paper used for art is heavy stock and could be cut this way. Canvas would be much more difficult. It would probably need a heavy gesso to make it stiff.

Even then, canvas tends to rip rather than be cut. When I cut canvas for a painting I don't actually cut it. I make a cut to start a rip and then rip it. Cutting a canvas along straight lines is rather difficult.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

Sotheby's says that it was sold by the artist in 2006, but that it was actually a gift rather than a sale. Banksy gave it to somebody in 2006, or so it's said. He could have given it to a cohort with full knowledge of what would eventually happen at auction. They could lie and forge any paperwork about it being from 2006 and it might instead be pretty recently made.

I find that rather strange.

I have given away art. I have had artists give works to me. I have traded artworks, usually with me getting something of much greater value.

In those exchanges there is an unwritten agreement that someone is getting art because they like it and that they won't just turn around and sell it.

Presumably Bansky decided to gift this painting to someone because they liked it and there was that type of agreement that it was a gift to keep and not to sell. But he had such strong reservations that they would sell it that he went to the extreme measures to create this elaborate plan and mechanisms to ruin that possibility. If I had such extreme reservations, I simply would not give the gift.

That makes it seem rather hokey. Or hoaxey.

 

[ceptimus]

No way was that mechanism installed and videoed twelve years ago and has then been silently receiving waiting for a trigger on the original battery pack since then.

Add to that the obvious wrong orientation of the knife blades and you can see it was all a publicity stunt, or 'art happening' or whatever you want to call it.

I doubt Sothebys were in on the stunt - I think they have too much "serious reputation" to risk that.

But the anonymous seller (and perhaps the anonymous buyer too) must have been in on the stunt, and a competent engineer would also be needed to assist with the build and testing of the shredding system, ensuring that it didn't false-trigger but would reliably trigger when the time came. I expect the mechanism was built, installed and tested (or at least overhauled and re-tested) within the last few months - and the misleading video with the obviously wrongly aligned blades could have been made at the same time.

 

[baron]

You have got to be kidding!!! If the Vatican actually, literally put up the Pietà for an open auction, the super rich and the dictators would line up and shell out upwards 200 million. I can see a billion as plausible.

Probably more. Salvator Mundi went for 1/2 billion.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

I doubt Sothebys were in on the stunt - I think they have too much "serious reputation" to risk that.

The more I think about it the more I think Sotheby's was not in on it. The only upside would be publicity, which they don't need. The downsides are significant.

Now they will get artists who replicate the stunt in some way. Or even sellers who copycat the stunt. And they will get buyers who want all kinds of ridiculous assurances that their purchase isn't booby trapped in some way. A bunch of legal conditions.

This will be a huge headache for Sotheby's. I wonder if they will sue Banksy.

 

[fagin]

I doubt anyone will get sued.

 

[Thermal]

...I don't think he has objection to auctioning or selling art (though he does say that his street art should never be sold). He thinks that people are out of their minds to pay extraordinary amounts for art.

Banksy posted on his Instagram account specifically that he built in the shredder in case it went up for auction.

No, not "sold out" and instead the opposite. He destroyed his own artwork right after it sold for a record amount.

It was a copy of a stencil spray paint work. He could make another on his lunch break. The buzz he created will pay off in spades. This was an attention-grabbing stunt which will have people on the edge of their seats for his future auctions/sales and increase the 'value' of his works. Yeah, it's a full-tilt sell out.

I agree with other posters that the shredding apparatus Banksy posted appears non-functional, even with its twelve year old batteries. It's a put-on, that seems to benefit Banksy's rep and consequently the bottom line selling/auction prices.

 

[theprestige]

Even Chekov wouldn't demand the gun shoot itself.

A self-shooting gun? He absolutely would.

That's the whole point: Banksy isn't going to go to the trouble of creating a self-destroying artwork, unless he intended to put it on display.

 

[rjh01]

What's your thinking here? How could Banksy do a fake Banksy?

The real painting was done in 2006 or so. But suppose the painting was actually done quickly and cheaply by the artist a few months before the auction. It would not cost the artist much. Give him plenty of publicity.

 

[Cheetah]

I think the point was that if an artist creates more than one version of a work, it does not make some of them fake.