Banksy strikes again....

[3point14]

He didn't sell that, the person who bought it originally did.

That'll teach me to pay attention.

And why would someone not accept a high price for something? If that's what people are willing to pay.

I don't know. The desire not to be seen to be selling out?

 

[fagin]

AFAIK he gives quite a bit of support to charities and causes.
And seems to be a bit more complicated than simply making loads of dosh. Although he has made shedloads. Odd person, probably, but unless you consider him a vandal, and he can vandalise my house any day of the week, seems pretty harmless, and decent.

"Take the water tank on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway outside of LA. Thinking the old tank was abandoned, Banksy painted a caption on the side of it "This Looks A Bit Like An Elephant", and instantly turned it into a tourist attraction and a potential money-maker for two owners of a media design firm that bought the tank from the city of LA with plans to remove and sell it. There was just one complication - the homeless man, Tachowa Covington, who had been living inside of it for seven years and suddenly had his home destroyed.

Banksy heard about the situation, and within hours had reached out to Covington, giving him enough money to get an apartment and support himself for an entire year. This was not enough for the artist. He went on to remove the water tank from his website, and refused to authenticate it for the new owners. The result? Instead of a profitable sale at auction, the tank ended up in a scrap metal yard."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/daniel...nt-his-art-to-be-worth-anything/#75c72e0461ba

"Banksy gives £205,000 to human rights and anti-arms trade groups"

https://www.theguardian.com/artandd...00-to-human-rights-and-anti-arms-trade-groups


"A Bristol youth charity has sold a piece of artwork it received from the street artist Banksy for more than £400,000, which the cash-strapped charity said would safeguard its future."

https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/brist...banksy-artwork-400000/finance/article/1309737

A group of volunteers who cook hot meals for refugees in Calais are hoping to help more people across the world - by selling art.

The Refugee Community Kitchen are hoping an auction of artwork, including workd by famous names such as Banksy and Stik, will help them reach more people who need their help.

https://www.londonlive.co.uk/news/2017-03-29/banksy-helps-charity-to-feed-refugees

"‘Banksy’ donates work for pub charity auction"

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/banksy-donates-work-for-pub-charity-auction-1-3828106

"The elusive graffiti artist Banksy made his mark on a painting bought for just $50 from a New York City thrift store, and bidding has exceeded $300,000 in a charity auction."

https://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/30/us/new-york-banksy-gift/index.html

 

[3point14]

That's some pretty decent philanthropy going on there, I really had no idea.

I particularly like the elephant.

 

[fagin]

Yep, I got a smile out of that.

 

[Myriad]

I've had a chance to look at the available video and photographs of the Girl With The Balloon "self-destructing" piece. I have to amend some of my earlier conclusions about it.

The views of the roller mechanism show, in the final analysis, a completely plausible shredding (ribbon cutting) device, consisting of three main rollers. Two rollers are shiny (probably steel) and do the cutting. One has circular blades and the other has grooves in the same positions. The third visible roller is black (probably rubber coated) and most likely pulls the canvas through. Not all the rollers are in position in all the video shots, but the mounting points for them are. The canvas has additional length below the image, analogous to the "leader" of a roll of film in a film camera, to engage with the mechanism while the part of the canvas meant to be visible is centered in the frame. That "leader" length is where the permanent creases are in the shredded strips. The part of the leader that was beyond (below) the cutting rollers was pre-cut, probably by feeding it through the cutting rollers themselves when loading the canvas into position. William Parcher's diagram a bit upthread has it right, as far as I can tell.

The two cutting rollers are positioned one above the other (when the frame is in its normal vertical "hung" position), and the canvas passes between them from front to back, which causes the observed displacement of the plane where the strips emerge at the bottom of the frame from the more forward position of the plane of the original visible picture.

It looked to me like the bottom of the Girl With The Balloon picture on the cut strips emerging from the bottom of the screen appeared too soon; that is, too low on the canvas strips; to be the same picture as was visible in the frame, when allowing for the front to back distance as well. That would necessitate the use of two canvases. I still think it looks like that, but I cannot show it by means of measurements given the measurement errors involved in evaluating the various photographs and video frames. In other words, I can't rule out the null hypothesis that it is a single canvas after all.

As has been pointed out before, there's no plausible mechanical purpose for the row of flat-mounted X-acto knife blades. My theory for why they're included is that that's how Banksy originally imagined the mechanism working ("just pull the canvas past some knife blades, simple!), until that idea was overruled by necessity. Or more precisely, overruled by the mechanically inclined friends or consultants he brought in to help with the engineering. He put them back there anyway to represent his own idea for how it might have worked.

 

[theprestige]

So he's a cog fop on top of everything else.

 

[William Parcher]

Let me put it this way, William, you yourself have described it as "magic". Well, there's a centuries-old magic trick that does exactly this with 2 separate pictures. And one thing we can say for sure about the explanatory videos Banksy has provided - he's lying about at least one thing in each of them.

So why should we believe the claim that he built an actual shredder? Just because he says it?
Doesn't it make more sense that this magic trick was accomplished the same way that magicians have been accomplishing this magic trick for centuries?

Incidentally, I'm not au fait enough with video equipment to really make a statement on this, but I've seen someone else say that the video of him creating and testing the shredder seems to be remarkably good quality for something filmed at home in 2006.

I don't think that Banksy engineered a "magic trick" where the display artwork is preserved inside the frame and an unseen matching artwork is instead shredded or is previously shredded.

I think it really is what it appears to be. A roller/shredder is concealed in the frame and the original artwork is shredded right in front of our eyes. There is no hidden (and far less valuable) artwork which gets shredded while the expensive original is secretly spared and stashed away within the frame.

This is my opinion based on

a) There is no apparent mechanism to do anything other than shred and roll out the display artwork.

b) It makes no sense for Banksy to pretend to destroy art instead of actually destroying art.

 

[Mr Salk]

Maybe he made it very recently. I think it discussed above that he had access to the painting shortly before it was auctioned. The video could have been made then. It is highly unlikely the device was fitted in 2006 as the batteries would not last that long.

He didn't have to retrofit the device, just change the batteries.

 

[rjh01]

He didn't have to retrofit the device, just change the batteries.

I think it would require a bit more than that. It would need to be checked to be in full working order. A little bit of rust or dirt in the wrong places and that would mean that the device would not work. And change the word change to install the batteries. It is not a good idea to leave batteries in a machine for years. They might leak. I suggest space was built into the frame so that the shredder could be installed easily.

I also find it odd that the hole where the paper came out was not noticed. Though a small piece of wood would be enough to hide the hole. Did anyone see the wood fall out?

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

a) There is no apparent mechanism to do anything other than shred and roll out the display artwork.

You're assuming that the videos - that we know contain lies and misdirection - show what they're purported to show.

b) It makes no sense for Banksy to pretend to destroy art instead of actually destroying art.

Sure it does - it's easier to accomplish.

 

[William Parcher]

You're assuming that the videos - that we know contain lies and misdirection - show what they're purported to show.

IMO, the clip that shows a complete functional shredding mechanism is what is now actually inside that frame. Other clips seem to show something that is nonfunctional or incomplete.

Sure it does - it's easier to accomplish.

Not IMO. I believe that a shredder alone is easier than a shredder plus a roller-conveyor to move the display canvas into some internal chamber. Moving two canvases should be less easy and more complicated than working with just one canvas.

You believe that the frame contains two canvases while I believe there is only one. I did previously entertain two canvases but I have decided upon one single canvas which was partially shredded.

He said that it was supposed to be completely shredded (with the strips falling onto the floor) but I have some remaining doubt. I think the partial shredding may have been the true goal and it was accomplished. The reason is that I think he may have wanted the result to be easily displayed as a single total unit rather than an empty frame with the shreddings contained in a box alongside the frame. There is also a simple artistic element for the state that it is in now as opposed to being completely shredded. One instantaneous glance tells any observer (even 100 years from now) which Banksy artwork was destroyed. Of course we instantly see Girl with Balloon and we see that half of her body was sliced into shreds.

The artwork is indeed destroyed even if it is only half shredded. But maybe he is telling the truth and it was supposed to be completely shredded.

 

[Mr Salk]

The artwork is indeed destroyed even if it is only half shredded. But maybe he is telling the truth and it was supposed to be completely shredded.

I concur excepting this part. The Artwork is not destroyed; it's just modified by the artist as originally intended.

 

[William Parcher]

I concur excepting this part. The Artwork is not destroyed; it's just modified by the artist as originally intended.

I can't disagree but at the same time I can say that shredding an artwork canvas destroys it. It's both. Schrödinger's Girl with Balloon.

Maybe I'm all wrong about that.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

IMO, the clip that shows a complete functional shredding mechanism is what is now actually inside that frame. Other clips seem to show something that is nonfunctional or incomplete.

As I said, you are taking a video in which we know there are falsehoods and misdirection at face value.

Not IMO. I believe that a shredder alone is easier than a shredder plus a roller-conveyor to move the display canvas into some internal chamber.

The magic trick wouldn't require a shredder at all.

Moving two canvases should be less easy and more complicated than working with just one canvas.

It's really not. Here's a video of someone making one out of cardboard and pens in a matter of minutes:

He said that it was supposed to be completely shredded (with the strips falling onto the floor) but I have some remaining doubt. I think the partial shredding may have been the true goal and it was accomplished. The reason is that I think he may have wanted the result to be easily displayed as a single total unit rather than an empty frame with the shreddings contained in a box alongside the frame. There is also a simple artistic element for the state that it is in now as opposed to being completely shredded. One instantaneous glance tells any observer (even 100 years from now) which Banksy artwork was destroyed. Of course we instantly see Girl with Balloon and we see that half of her body was sliced into shreds.

You think he's lying, yet you're prepared to take him at his word?

 

[Mr Salk]

Bansky is a Vandal, not a Magician.
His medium is almost always temporary, and he has shown little to no respect for the longevity of his or fellow street-artist work. The streets are mean.

There is no "bonus" work hidden inside so the buyer may someday double-cash-out.

 

[Drewbot]

This definitely looks more like the painting is fine inside, and it dropped out dummy strips of material, instead of actually shredding the painting.

 

[Drewbot]

b) It makes no sense for Banksy to pretend to destroy art instead of actually destroying art.

If Sotheby's was in on it, they would have to be assured that the art would not be damaged.

Unless the whole assembly is the art.

Now artists will be putting up ****** artwork in big boxy frames, in the hopes that some art speculator will be hoping to get a mechanized living art type of thing. No shredder needed, just giant ugly frames.

 

[Mr Salk]

This definitely looks more like the painting is fine inside, and it dropped out dummy strips of material, instead of actually shredding the painting.

There is no painting inside; vandals have integrity.

Pretending to commit a crime/vandalize is laughable to the credible criminal.
Anti-artists would NEVER give an art-buyer the opportunity to double up.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

You think Banksy doesn't care about money? Or that he's opposed to his art being bought and sold?

 

[Matthew Best]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-47123606

The German museum displaying Banksy's painting that partly self-destructed at auction has "deactivated" the artwork's shredding device.

The museum wanted to prevent the rest of the artwork being destroyed.

Henning Schaper, the director of Frieder Burda de Baden-Baden Museum in South West Germany, said they wanted to avoid a visitor setting off the shredder.