Banksy did it again! He, she or of even they, nobody knows who Banksy is, so one can ask why everyone thinks Banksy is a man?
But nevertheless Bansky made again a huge statement with this self-destroying artwork.
What is it Banksy wants to say? Knowing the artwork of Banksy, I think he is making fun of the way expensive art nowadays has changed into a kind of extraordinary investment, where only a few people in this world can afford it?
Mark Rothko he too made a same kind of statement. He once got a commission to make huge paintings for a very exclusive restaurant in New York, the Four Season in the Seagram building. The paintings were finished, but then he wondered what was the environment the paintings would be exposed to. So he went over to that expensive restaurant, sat down, eat and drinked for a while looking at all the people in the restaurant. Then he thought that this was an environment he definitly not had the feeling to expose his artwork to. These people would never appreciate the art as he had meant art to be. So he called of this whole commission and send over the “Seagram Murals” as a gift to the Tate Modern in London. Everytime I visit London I go there and sit down in this “Seagram Mural – Mark Rothko” room. One can walk in there for free!
And what makes it such an incredible statement. The day these painting arrived at the Tate Modern, Mark Rothko was found dead in his art studio in the states. He had killed himself, 25th Februar 1970, three weeks later I was born! 18th March 1970.
Bansky, Gehard Richter, Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, they all are living artist who are now living in a time where they get the respect and therefor also the credits of their artwork during life. And that is so great. Knowing the stories about former artist living in very poor circumstances. For example Vincent van Gogh. I did a study on his live, his ear accident. And from his more than 800 letters to his brother Theo, we now know in detail how he lived. Vincent was so poor he was financial dependent of the charity of his brother. Vincent only sold one art piece during his live. About €1000,- he recieved for it. And he had so many dreams, one of which we know about is the Yellow House in Arles. He wanted to set up a place where artist could meet eachother and learn from eachother. Vincent had hoped that his friend Paul Gauguin who was more succesfull at that time, could have helped him, but in the end the got in a fight. The ear accident was maybe a result out of that. A whole story is written in 2016 about all this in a book of Bernadette Murphy; The ear of Van Gogh; the true story.
What we can see is that most artist have amazing, mostly during their time they live, crazy ideas. Some of them are lucky to make them come true, others die poor and after that people learn from their thoughts and take over the dreams, even then make them bigger then the artist could even imagine.
Mark Rothko is now in the Tate Modern, everyone can walk in for free and watch the Seagram Murals. One can sit there for hours enjoying these masterpieces.
Vincent van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, an amazing place, thousands of visitors every day! People standing in a row waiting on their timeslot to go in. And then all these beautiful paintings, his selfies from that time. Van Gogh made more than fourty selfportrets, he was so poor he himself was the model he could paint by looking in the mirror. That is the reason we see Van Gogh in his portrets the way he looked at himself through the mirror.
A crazy world. Van Gogh’s paintings are now in the catagory of the most expensive paintings ever sold. Mark Rothko’s Seagram Murals they now get the attention they never could have had in that restaurant.
And Banksy’s destroyed painting has doubled his vallue directly after it was destroyed.
Art is a strange way to reflect how we people live. It is time that art gets its vallue during the time the artist can enjoy the creativity and the success of all this. So maybe from out of that new worlds are to be discovered.
Art meets Science!
