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An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

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Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#141

Post by spappal »

unstuckdev wrote: post #129
crooked-v wrote: post #2

> Banksy’s iconic Girl With Balloon (2006) attracted feverish bidding in the room and on the phones, racing past its high estimate of £300,000 to hammer at £860,000, or just over £1 million ($1.3 million with fees). As the gavel slammed, a siren rang out through the salesroom and everyone stood stunned as the Banksy canvas slid through the frame that it was contained in and emerged underneath—but shredded. I'm impres…

There appears to be a light inside. Compare the unshredded top to the bottom in one of the pictures from the front. https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-england-bristol-45770028 It probably used that power source.

The light appears to not come from the inside:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Std3LfVx41c&t=33

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#142

Post by JumpCrisscross »

spuz wrote: post #137
nns wrote: post #119

This is a well orchestrated publicity stunt. A reputed auction house like Sotheby's would never put an item up before thoroughly checking and documenting it. Post this stunt, the artwork will now be valued much higher than what it sold for at this auction. Banksy has been known for such ingenious and clever marketing stunts.

Please tell me which other ingenious and clever marketing stunts Banksy, the anti-capitalist artist who refuses to allow his work or even prints (with rare exceptions) to be sold is known for?

> Banksy, the anti-capitalist artist

(Alleged) anti-capitalism and marketing are not mutually exclusive.

Banksy has an eye for publicity, from selling his art for $60 on New York’s streets [1] to parading a painted packiderm [2]. Whether it’s to sell his art (which it does), sell his name (which it also does) or sell his ideas (which it does, too) is orthogonal to it being clever and effective marketing.

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/artanddesig...

[2] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/5355638.stm

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#143

Post by tim333 »

throw0101011 wrote: post #25

Not referring to this specific exhibit but other pieces by a similar artist. Thousands of people can create this kind of paintings for cheap. That it still sells for more than what many people can make in a decade or a career means a stratospheric concentration of wealth in society or a bubble in the commercial art world. If there is real scarcity because of climate change or other widespread disaster, how much can a…

>sorry effect of the financial system

Maybe but if you think about it it's an exchange of a bit of paper with some marks on which could easily be reproduced for some 0s and 1s representing a bank balance which could be reproduced or qualitatively eased and the like too. The transaction has no direct effect on the amount of food produced or how much get to children. The worst famines in recent history have been caused by people in ok fed countries saying look at this financial system, it's wack, lets smash it, and then finding millions get hungry and possibly dead, see Russia, China and Venezuela.

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#144

Post by stephengillie »

tomatocracy wrote: post #91
hueving wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If there is real scarcity because of climate change or other widespread disaster, how much can a piece of this ‘quality’ be sold for? A loaf of bread, or less? First, if it's just from climate change, it will be gradual increase in scarcity and all kinds of methods of growing food become viable as the price of bread increases. So unless climate change actually makes Banksy undesirable, it will still be worth more lo…

Money is not really a scarce resource though - we can always print more of it. A million dollars spent on an artwork doesn't mean there are a million fewer $1 tins of beans made. That's not how the economy works.

Money is the force carrier for the value field. Humans exchange value, quantized as money, and the value field is stronger in some areas of our world.

Like any force carrier, they are fungible, and they are constantly being created and annihilated. Banks emit and absorb them strongly, other organizations less so.

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#145

Post by logicchains »

konschubert wrote: post #139
darawk wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not referring to this specific exhibit but other pieces by a similar artist. Thousands of people can create this kind of paintings for cheap. That it still sells for more than what many people can make in a decade or a career means a stratospheric concentration of wealth in society or a bubble in the commercial art world. Not really. The level of wealth required to reasonably make a purchase like this is what? 20 m…

I don't think two orders of magnitude is a reasonable level of wealth inequality.

What gives you the right to decide what other people do with their stuff? How would you feel if someone came along and said "I don't think two orders of magnitude is a reasonable level of wealth inequality, so I'm taking everything you own to give it to poor Africans"?

Imagine two people both making $100k/year. One saves/invests half their income, the other saves 0%. In 20 years, one has a million dollars of savings, the other has less than a thousand: three orders of magnitude of wealth inequality. The saver, by exercising restraint and not consuming everything he produces, has contributed more to the economy by allowing the fruits of his labours to be invested, increasing future productivity. If we penalise the saver and favour the wastrel, we incentivise and get less savings and investment, hence in the long term less growth and lower standards of living for everyone.

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#146

Post by f055 »

spuz wrote: post #137
nns wrote: post #119

This is a well orchestrated publicity stunt. A reputed auction house like Sotheby's would never put an item up before thoroughly checking and documenting it. Post this stunt, the artwork will now be valued much higher than what it sold for at this auction. Banksy has been known for such ingenious and clever marketing stunts.

Please tell me which other ingenious and clever marketing stunts Banksy, the anti-capitalist artist who refuses to allow his work or even prints (with rare exceptions) to be sold is known for?

Moco museum in Amsterdam sells in its giftshop Banksy artworks on pretty much everything, from posters to mugs.

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#147

Post by tomatocracy »

throw0101011 wrote: post #93
tomatocracy wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money is not really a scarce resource though - we can always print more of it. A million dollars spent on an artwork doesn't mean there are a million fewer $1 tins of beans made. That's not how the economy works.

An extra million dollar on the piece get spent by many organizations and people involved and increases the production of the resources they want and decreases the allocation of resources to produce things other people want. Unless they store most of it in a bank somewhere and don’t use it, it has effects on the real economy.

Yes, it has effects on the real economy (although in the case of these high-value positional goods I'd argue they're rather smaller than you might think - as likely both buyer and sellers are simply swapping for money which otherwise will sit in a bank account so the effects are limited to those imparted by the middle-men).

My point was, the economy is not a zero-sum game.

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#149

Post by kasey_junk »

throw0101011 wrote: post #25

Not referring to this specific exhibit but other pieces by a similar artist. Thousands of people can create this kind of paintings for cheap. That it still sells for more than what many people can make in a decade or a career means a stratospheric concentration of wealth in society or a bubble in the commercial art world. If there is real scarcity because of climate change or other widespread disaster, how much can a…

This is a funny comment about this particular piece of art because it is an obvious & unsubtle reading of the theme of this piece (and other Banksy pieces).

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#150

Post by tim333 »

Theodores wrote: post #130
throw0101011 wrote: post #25

Not referring to this specific exhibit but other pieces by a similar artist. Thousands of people can create this kind of paintings for cheap. That it still sells for more than what many people can make in a decade or a career means a stratospheric concentration of wealth in society or a bubble in the commercial art world. If there is real scarcity because of climate change or other widespread disaster, how much can a…

Recently Damien Hirst has had to scale back operations because his brand of 'art business' is not selling. Fashions change and also there is a limit as to how many people will pay an absolute fortune to become part of the exclusive club of people with 'spot paintings' on their walls. When the going was good his company hired hundreds of people. All of them slaving away making and 'retailing' his art. This was good fo…

>Global auction sales at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips jumped 21.6% in the first half of 2018, according to the latest report by ArtTactic.

- Salvator Mundi sold last year for $430 million.

I imagine the art business will go on a while. Even if Hirst is having a down turn.

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