Banksy is remarkable and I don't mean art or even this, but the guy/gal/person has legit just stayed anon after decades in the public eye in an age where every clown with a phone cam is out trying to Sherlock their day away, genuinely just remarkable to manage.
I want you to say the sentence "I live in the 21st century and there has been a public figure doing public things for nearly 20 years who constantly makes news and we have literally no idea about anything at all about them" and think about what you just said
My two favorites are the shredding of the auction piece and the random hand out of a work to a kid on the underground.
Planned and public actions out in sight, still unknown.
the street sales are interesting but the shredding is a surface level commentary on art world market dynamics and not all that profound
only increased its value and no collectors or private equity firms were hurt in creation of that work
its also better viewed as a statement on capitalism than art value. You have the investor class who expect to get whatever they want because of their wallet whenever they want and and he gathered them in a place to publicly be told No. Profundity is not the only metric that we need use here.
he didn't tell them no though
its pandering to the wealthy
the piece got its buyer a bunch of clout and money
give me jens hanning and maurizio Catalan for debasing art collectors expectations
heck even NFTs explore fame/image/access/value in more historically interesting and egalitarian context
its art sure but is it really petty persay to meticulously plan a theatre piece on financial speculation in an auction house for celebrity millionaires
original buyer resold piece for 25 million bucks
shredded banksy is just winking at auction houses and fame
real banksy is best in the streets