Sale of Banksy art in L.A. brings new cred to ‘street’ artists

Featured on marketwatch.com

A collection of works by elusive street artist Banksy goes on the block in Los Angeles this weekend, and pre-auction bids put a six-figure starting point on select pieces.

Julien’s Auctions, a Beverly Hills–based auction house, is holding its biannual Street & Contemporary Art Show, and the formally unidentified U.K.-based graffiti artist — or artists? — known for social commentary is among the headliners.

Rogue artist no more? At the L.A. show, Banksky is in the company of such contemporary masters as Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons and Keith Haring.

A Banksy collection featuring eight works is expected to sell for over a half a million dollars alone, according to auction promotions. Pre-auction bids also have been placed for single pieces, including “Happy Choppers,” an original aerosol stencil of armed military helicopters dressed with a pink bow created in London’s Whitecross Street Market, for as much as $100,000 to start.

Banksy has published select works in a book called “Wall and Piece,” but selling his noncanvas work (in addition to murals, he paints on canvas and does multimedia installations) can challenge the art world to ask if its significance is lessened when stripped from its original context. The rising prices for the work and that of other so-called street artists would seem to suggest there is little value lost when pieces find their way off the street and into private collections.

So how do you free street art from the “street” to sell it? One of three versions of Banksy’s mural “Heart Boy” was created with Brooklyn-based collective Faile on a building in the Islington section of London, near Kings Cross Station. The demolition of the building in 2009 initiated the removal and conservation of the mural, which has remained in the owner’s possession until the Los Angeles sale.

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