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INSIDE THE FRAME ABN
THE INS AND OUTS OF HOW TO SELL A BANKSY
A PAIR OF NEWCOMERS TAKE ON THE SYSTEM
$575,000 at Bonham's auction house in 2007—and fi nd a buyer for it, neither of them knew exactly what they were get- ting into. Having no prior experience dealing with galleries, collectors, authen- tication boards or, really, the art world in general, the pair's quest to restore, au- thenticate, evaluate, exhibit and eventu- ally sell the piece was a long and arduous one. Fortunately they took their video camera along for the journey, resulting in the new the documentary fi lm, How to Sell a Banksy. When T ompson and Cagatay got
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the presumed Banksy, the piece was in poor shape—the result of using spatu- las to scrape it off its original home on a railway bridge in London—and, by T ompson's own admission, looked like "some shreds of paper stuck in a frame." In attempting to fi nd a buyer for the
work, however, its poor condition was in some ways a less important issue
n 2007, when London-based movi- emakers Christopher T ompson and Alper Cagatay made the deci- sion to "acquire" a piece of art by legendary street artist Banksy— whose Space Girl and Bird sold for
L to R: Art co-owner Reino Lehtonen-Riley and co-director Christopher Thompson show off their infamous Banksy
than the ability to prove the work's provenance. "You can trace ownership of a piece of art all the way back to the original artist, but if that artist refuses to confi rm it's his, art buyers get nervous that you're trying to pull a fast one," says T ompson. For street art, the issue of ownership
"BANKSY'S ART HAS RAKED IN MILLIONS OF DOLLARS... DESPITE HAVING BEEN PUT OUT ON THE STREET FOR FREE."
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is a particularly thorny one; artists tend to paint their work anonymously, as the "installation" process is oſt entimes il- legal. T e Banksy-endorsed "handling service" Pest Control will authenticate Banksy's work, with the exception of his early pieces, which were created without permission before the artist's fame had begun to develop. "Pest Control deals
only with legitimate
works of art and has no involvement with any kind of illegal activity," states the company's Website. T at's a problem for T ompson and
Cagatay, as the piece they came across is from Banksy's early period, when "there was a ton of Banksy's work [around]," says T ompson. "Everyone local knew where they were and thought they were pretty cool, but this was well before Banksy was who he is today." T e moviemakers' eff orts to sell the
piece have yet to come to fruition, but the fi lm they made of their experiences serves as an intriguing commentary on the establishment that has sprung up around a decidedly anti-establishment fi gure, one whose art has raked in mil- lions of dollars... despite having been put out on the street for free. ABN Visit www.howtosellabanksy.com for
more information. —Rebecca Pahle JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012
