facebooktwittertelegramwhatsapp
copy short urlprintemail
+ A
A -
webmaster

NYT Syndicate

In what was billed as a monthlong residency in New York City, British street artist Banksy worked at night putting stencils on walls around the city. In the morning, he posted images online that sent fans hunting to find them before they were painted over.
Last week, two of Banksy's pieces caught the eye of collectors, fetching six figures at Bonhams postwar and contemporary art sale in London.
A 27-foot SWAT van covered in his stencils sold for about $283,500. One of his canvases of a leopard emerging from a bar code sold for more than $206,000, exceeding presale estimates. That piece last sold at auction in 2012 for $98,167.
Descendants of graffiti artists of the 1970s and €s, street artists make their names surreptitiously, usually at night, on building walls. But artists like Banksy ” whose real identity remains unknown ” have gained the attention of mainstream collectors.
"There's always a dislocation when you think about street art," said Ralph Taylor, senior director of postwar and contemporary art at Bonhams."It exists in the public domain. The best way to own a piece of street art is to have the wall and get the art to go on it. But that's not keeping with the counter-cultural attitude of it."
Yet for every Banksy, whose works are rising in value, gallery owners say there are a multitude of witty spray painters whose long-term value to collectors is uncertain at best.
"Some people buy art and they think it's street art," said Todd Kramer, a partner at Gallery Valentine, who has been collecting Banksy's work since 2001."I don't have the heart to tell them it's going to be worth zero. If we look at investment-grade material, they're buying the biggest penny stock they possibly can."
In Kramer's view, there are barely a half-dozen street artists whose work rises to the level of collectibility. Besides Banksy, he listed Mr Brainwash, Invader, Os Gemeos and Shepard Fairey, who became widely known for his 2008 'Hope' poster of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Invader's work, Kramer said, has tripled in value in the last year or so. His works of video game characters sell for as much as $50,000.
Yet the value of any contemporary artist in the early stages of a career is hard to discern ” and subject to auction sales and gallery shows. Are there greater risks and potential rewards for collecting street art? Is a work that can be displayed in someone's home as valuable as the real thing on a wall in a city?
Jessica Goldman Srebnick, chief executive of Goldman Properties, a real estate developer, is in a unique position as a collector: She owns both the walls on which street artists paint and pieces that hang in her home.
Her company has offered street artists a wall on the corner of Houston Street and the Bowery in Manhattan since 2008. Three artists a year have the opportunity to use the space, and after their time is up, the wall is whitewashed so someone else can begin.
"We had recognised that Keith Haring was one of the first to create these public art walls," Srebnick said."It was a nod to him and a nod to public art and street art."
Her firm has redeveloped a neighbourhood in Miami, called Wynwood, with street art on over 40 walls.
"We look at it as a gift to the neighbourhood where we're going," she said."But when we invite the artists, we collect their artwork."
Srebnick said it wasn't always easy to find pieces that would fit into her home.
"There aren't a lot of artists who can paint a six-story building and also a 4-foot-by-4-foot canvas," she said.
For practical reasons, buying a wall can be problematic. Darren Julien, president and chief executive of Julien's Auctions, sold one that had held up a Los Angeles gas station a few years ago. It had a Banksy mural on it and cost $80,000 to remove. It sold for $200,000 at auction.
But Julien noted that Banksy's authentication service, Pest Control Office, would not authenticate it or any piece of public art that had been removed. Those works were not meant for sale, after all, but for public enjoyment.
Nicholas Korniloff, founder of Art Southampton, a fair being held this weekend on Long Island, said he once had six street artists paint 20-plus-foot canvases that hung over his Art Miami fair. An Alexis Diaz painting of a whale with palm trees coming out of its fins sold for $60,000.
"We told them to go big," he said."It takes a certain buyer."
He said the work this weekend would be smaller, scaled for New York homes.
Beth Shak, a professional poker player, said she bought a piece called 'Je t'aime' by Mr Brainwash, a French-born street artist, in Miami a couple of years ago for around $50,000. She liked it so much that she commissioned him to do a similar image on one of her Birkin handbags. That, she said, took the bag's value, at least for insurance purposes, to $75,000 from $12,000.
Cey Adams, a graffiti artist in New York who was the creative director at Def Jam Recordings, said a couple recently commissioned him to paint a mural in their home on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
"They collect blue-chip art," he said."They said, 'We need some street art in here.'"
He credited the Internet, which maintained a history of his graffiti from the 1970s and 1980s, for his commissions.
Yet it is the very ease with which images can spread online that makes some art world insiders cautious about the long-term value of street art. Kramer said the street art movement had matured.
"This movement is set already in art history," he said."It doesn't mean there might not be another Banksy down the road. But there are a lot of copycat artists."
While the potential for appreciation is always a factor in any art purchase, the ease with which some artists' styles can be copied is also a concern.
"It's still a laissez-faire business," Korniloff said."You have to take the proper steps to educate yourself. Younger artists are very accessible. They have certificates of authentication."
Taylor pointed out that fakes exist in every genre.
"No matter if it's a Titian or a Banksy, the rigours you would use to assess the provenance are the same."
copy short url   Copy
17/07/2016
1140