All posts tagged: Sotheby’s London

BSA Film Friday: 10.19.18

BSA Film Friday: 10.19.18

bsa-film-friday-JAN-2015

Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.

Now screening :
1. Shredding the Girl and Balloon – The Director’s Cut
2. JKS Crew in Italy & France
3. Vigilante Vigilante: The Battle For Expression / Trailer
4. The Hut – A Partial X / Felipe Pantone

bsa-film-friday-special-feature

BSA Special Feature: Shredding the Girl and Balloon – The Director’s Cut

By the way, this is not the first Street Artist to shred art in public with a home-made apparatus. Check out BSA Film Friday in April of 2014 for a stunning example of slicing public advertisements with Bandes de Pub.

We start our weekly selection with the followup release that takes hold of the narrative of the moments leading up to this month’s Banksy auction and self-destruction at Sotheby’s.

In it you hear the auctioneer chit-chatting beforehand saying things like “It’s a fun auction, you know. Everyone’s got a chance.” And by ‘everyone’ he means…everyone here in this room and on the 30 phones who are also bidding.

In other revelations this week, the Financial Times is reporting that the original artwork contained a “dedication reading ‘Thanks Jo’, which art market experts said could be a reference to Banksy’s long-time publicist, Jo Brooks.” Not so fast there Mr. Brillianteen. Perhaps Banksy is just a Jimi Hendrix fan (Hey Joe) or it was a gift to rapper Fat Joe (I’m Not a Player I Just Crush Alot) (RIP). Joe the Lion? Smokin’ Joe?

JKS Crew in Italy & France

Okay class, who wants to tell us what they did on their summer vacation?

Looks like JKS Crew were on spraycation this summer in Italy and France. The jazz bassy groove that accompanies the scenes in this video make us pine for those dreamy days of July and August already, and its only mid-October.

Vigilante Vigilante: The Battle For Expression / Trailer

Who owns public space? The oligarchs, yes, but after them?

You do!

Who should paint it?

When graffiti writers and Street Artists take it over with acts of transgressive painting one may expect that the next step is probably the buff, unless you living are in an aesthetic lawlessness like Berlin, or Athens, or 2000s Detroit.  It is infrequent that one may countenance the self-appointed citizen buffer, but they exist in many a neighborhood. A combination of ornery rebel and a justice-minded citizen; This is the vehement, street cleaning vigilante.

If you were writing a bespectacled urban guidebook about characters found on city streets you may advise, “Think twice before crossing this curiously civic interbreed, broken windows can be sharp.”

 

The Hut – A Partial X / Felipe Pantone

A Liberian surfer camp that just happens to capture the artworks of some of the biggest names in Street Art? Organizers say that its to reduce the stigma that surrounds the country that was hurt so badly by ebola a few years ago. Perhaps that what has drawn artists like Faile, Conor Harrington, 1010, Martin Whatson, Marke Jenkins, Herakut, Ted Pim, Sandra Chevrier, Ben Eine, and Seth Globepainter here to create new works here.  Today we see works by Felipe Pantone, JR, and Slinkachu.

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Girl With a Shred Balloon: Banksy Slices Live at Sotheby’s

Girl With a Shred Balloon: Banksy Slices Live at Sotheby’s

Street Art fans are completely familiar with the ephemeral nature of art.

Sotheby’s may not be.

Last night at the venerated auction house in London the performance artist and wittily cerebral Street Artist Banksy apparently self-destructed an artwork that only seconds beforehand was hammered in at roughly a million.

Part of the October Contemporary Art Evening Auction here during the Frieze week, the auction had just sold the iconic “Girl With Balloon” when it slipped downward through the bottom of the frame before bidders eyes, turning the work into pasta pieces to be boiled and served al dente with a rich sayonara sauce.

Bansky. Image courtesy of the artist from the official Bansky Instagram account.

“Has Sotheby’s been framed?”
“Did Banksy sell and buy the piece for a stunt?”
“Is the art more or less valuable now?”
“Is Banksy Sticking it to the Man?
“Do unicorns really fart glitter?”

While the sometimes seemingly drunken conjecture and #hashtagging about who engineered this performance and who’s sorry/not sorry ricochets across our screens, a video that has been attributed to the artist asserts that this cutting achievement in ambush performance was on the boards for a while. As usual with the artist/team working collectively as Banksy, its not crystal clear who’s done what.

But there’s no doubt that Banksy again is the star and the reviews are apoplectic!

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