The business of fake Banksy shows

For many years, Banksy shows with hefty admission rates, arranged without artist permission, have been thriving. Worse, not usually explicitly stated as such, many include fakes or illegal copies of his work. a look at the amazing occurrence of the very profitable "Banksy business," derived from the name of one of the most well-known living artists worldwide. A weird phenomena started between 2016 and 2018: different Banksy shows started to show up and travel the four corners of the earth. Mixing framed works, sculptures, installations, sets and walls tagged with stencils, these paid tours with their polished staging draw several tens, even hundreds of thousands of people in each city, eager to enter the world of the most well-known and enigmatic graffiti artist in the world. The problem is that these gatherings were scheduled without even telling the primary individual involved. Worse, the creations are not necessarily original... Though he has maintained his legendary secrecy since his 1990s debut, the British stencil artist regularly expresses himself online. Early in 2018, he posted on his official website: "Members of the public should be aware that although there has been a recent surge of Banksy exhibits, none of them are consensual. They have been arranged devoid of the artist's knowledge or participation. Please treat them accordingly. With number eleven, the first being Severnshed, held in Bristol in 2000, and the most recent Cut & Run, a retrospective shown from 18 June to 28 August 2023 at the Gallery of Modern Art in Glasgow, Banksy has wanted and conceptualised eleven. With the exception of Dismaland (his well-known group exhibition displayed in 2015 in the form of a dystopian amusement park in Weston-super-Mare), Banksy makes it clear on his website that he has never charged admission to his shows for one only: it included a Ferris wheel, which was costly to install. 24 euros worth of tickets Unlike the real ones, the latter charge an entrance fee, and a high one - often around 24 euros, which is roughly the equivalent of the blockbuster exhibitions at La Villette like "Ramses" this year (between 20 and 22 euros for a dated ticket, 32 for an open ticket!). This is how you spot the "fake" exhibits! Still, these exorbitant rates do not deter supporters. For the planners of these activities, Banksy is hence a goose laying golden eggs. which they profit from in a really dishonest way. Unauthorized exhibits come in numerous forms: those with just original works, those with just replicas, and those depending on a combination of the two. Designed by British artist, actor, and collector François Bérardino (also known as Béru), the "Banksy Modeste Collection" falls under the first category and most likely the only one Banksy would be unable to object about: this traveling exhibition of almost 260 works and objects, which has just been shown in Chartres and has been touring since 2021, attracting a total of 141,435 visitors in eight cities in France, is indeed the only one free. Better still, it has already gathered 190,000 euros for NGOs and associations dedicated to topics Banksy defends! proudly accepting its unofficial status, Steve Lazarides, a former close friend of Banksy, curates "The Art of Banksy." "The Art of Banksy" is paid, and without humanitarian intent, yet also falling within the first category—that of totally real material. Attracting in total more than 1.5 million visitors, this exhibition, which has been touring since its inception in Melbourne in 2016, has been seen in fifteen cities including London, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco and Miami. Curated by former close friend Steve Lazarides, Proudly claiming its unofficial identity with a brilliant red emblem bearing the words "Unauthorized private collection," is Originally the official agent and gallery owner, this Bristol native was the photographer and driver for the artist before calling off this relationship for mysterious reasons in 2008. More than 150 original creations Lazarides said in 2021, "This exhibition could work everywhere, it could continue to tour permanently in all the countries of the world." He claims that the schedule compiles more than 150 genuine pieces provided by forty collectors. Presented since September 13 at Regent Street (London) in an area of 2,000 m², the entrance fee for its current version Reserve 21 pounds sterling (24 euros) during peak hours and 36 pounds sterling (no less than 41.40 euros) for a VIP access with brochure and souvenir ticket. Between 70 and 100 works (dependent on the city) accompanied by audio guides and a virtual reality incursion into Banksy's studio, the exhibition "Banksy: The Art of Protest" (previously titled "Banksy: Genius of Vandal?" and "Banksy: Building Castles in the Sky") also brings together authenticated pieces belonging to private collectors: between 70 and 100 works depending on the city. The admission ticket price ranges from 15 (at the Design Museum in Barcelona) to roughly 28 euros; this VR experience costs 3 euros to be included to the price. Curated by Russian businessman Alexander Nachkebiya and produced by Exhibition Hub (also producer of "Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience"), the exhibition started its journey in 2018 in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where it reportedly attracted 500,000 people, then moved at a frenetic pace worldwide. The meager number of original pieces on display—only 27 out of the 150—made some visitors feel duped. Some, meantime, go farther in provocation. Presented from January to May 2023 in Malmö (Sweden), "The Mystery of Banksy – A Genius Mind" currently in Stuttgart and coming in Stockholm lacks a single original item; of the 160 presented, all are reproductions! The public seems not to be turned off, though. "The results of the satisfaction surveys carried out among visitors show that expectations are met, even exceeded, with a sensational score of more than 96%,," the organisers claim on their official website. Returns promised Others, meanwhile, have drawn criticism. This is the case of "The Art of Banksy: Without Limits," which has been touring since 2016 following a premiere in Istanbul and has drawn more than a million people in more than eleven countries. The minimal number of genuine items on display—only 27 pieces out of the 150 displayed—made some tourists in Seoul, South Korea, feel duped! The Korea Herald reports! As the organisers state, the original works (prints, sculptures, photos, etc.) were in fact drowned among works "reproduced with stencils imitating his technique, especially for the exhibition", as well as a reconstruction of Banksy's bathroom, which he had decorated with rat stencils during the 2020 lockdown and of which he had posted photos online. "It's like Christ; the power of the message this story tells counts more than his actual walking on water." Vardar Hazis Although the organizers had said that replicas would be there, they kept the uncertainty between copies and original pieces dominating and were ambiguous about their precise count. After complaints, pamphlets showing the state of every work—original or copy—were distributed, and individuals who had already bought their tickets but no longer wanted to visit were given returns. These would have accounted for less than 1% of tickets sold in Europe and less than 1.5% in Asia, claims Fever, in charge of ticketing. "A best-of-copyists imitating the most famous stencils of the master" 2019 saw a hybrid show of the same nature in Paris. Now permanent, it is shown under the name "Musée Banksy": a 900 m² area housed in the Espace Lafayette Drouot (a former underground parking park restored on rue du Faubourg Montmartre) combining almost 100 works, including 51 from private collections, and 42 stenciled walls. Except that the latter "are not Banksy paintings but a best-of- copyists imitating the most famous stencils of the master", with a precision sometimes "very approximate", criticised the street art specialist Olivier Granoux in Télérama in 2019. These reproductions' writers are: "A collective of world-famous street artists who wished to remain anonymous," says Hazis Vardar, a Belgian of Albanian ancestry who, with his brother Alil, has set up a modest empire in the realm of comedy shows by purchasing multiple theatres. "With Banksy, nothing is true anyhow. It's like with Christ, we don't care that he really walked on water; the important thing is the power of the message this story conveys," Hazis Vardar boldly argues in Télérama. "It's like when you buy a Lacoste, you always have a copy, never the original model. From there to supporting the 'Jacoste' - a counterfeit bought in the souk, there's still a gap," says startled Olivier Granoux! Like in the original form, you could sleep there for 150 to 260 euros every night. You will spend fourteen euros to visit this cardboard decoration. 20 should you wish to prolong the stay at the reproduction (still illegal) of the Walled Off Hotel, this well-known hotel-installation opened by Banksy in 2017 in Bethlehem, a stone's throw from the separation wall built by Israel, with Palestinian artists. Like in the original form, one can sleep there for 150 to 260 euros each night—high rates when the chambers are far more ordinary than those of the Palestinian version. "A unique experience," nonetheless, guarantees the Parisian museum's website. Originally funded entirely by Banksy, the Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem reinvested its earnings on neighbourhood projects. An altruistic quality its Parisian copy has been cautious not to duplicate! In Paris, on the other hand, there are plenty of suggestions for increasing income. One may even rent the exhibition spaces for "private dinners" or "cocktail dinners surrounded by the artist's works". But why is Banksy losing his work so frequently? "Has always generated an artistic vagueness that denounces as much as it stimulates the art market," says specialist Olivier Granoux, whose very nature of activity is rebellious, conducted illegally and anonymously in public spaces, on walls that do not belong to him. A "legal vacuum" that results in the methodical theft of his works resold at outrageous rates. A parasite of which this spread of "fake" exhibits is merely the logical continuation. Once more, the case emphasizes the paradoxes in which street artists find themselves caught: the public authorities still regard their activities as unlawful, yet their works are valued and sell for outrageous sums on the art market. This is even so despite the writers of these works, like Banksy, opposing their commercialization. Thanks to a shredding mechanism buried in the frame of the work, the partial self-destruction of one of his paintings, The Girl with the Balloon, in the auction room where it had just been sold for more than 1 million euros, presented an absurd situation against which the British artist protested in a striking manner in 2018. An action that finally only thrilled collectors even more and drove the value of the piece to rise! " copyright is for losers" Given this tsunami of "fake" shows, Banksy's only genuine option is to let it go. How, indeed, one could criticize the theft or illicit use of a work created covertly and illegally? 2018 saw Banksy reveal a screen grab of an online exchange with a fan. To the later, who gave him pictures of the "Genius or Vandal" exhibition?Banksy responded, shocked: "But what is this thing? in Moscow."An display of your Moscow-based work. They charge twenty pounds to enter. They created something that looked real. You ought to act; could you not publish a statement?"Wonderful. The artist said, "I'm not sure whether I'm the best person to grumble about people using images without permission." Man, nah. "You have to do something," his interrogator says. "This is a matter of principle; it's a fraud." The stencil artist groans, "I wouldn't know where to start." "Copy is for losers," Banksy once stated. Is he beginning to have changing thoughts? Not truly. He built a pop-up shop in London's suburbs in 2019 where you couldn't enter or purchase the on show goods. "I continue to encourage anyone who wants to copy, borrow, steal or amend my work for entertainment, academic research or activism," said Banksy on his methodology. Even on this issue, though, Banksy is quite forgiving: as long as no one claims exclusive rights to the economic use of my name, the door is open to everyone! These "fake" shows are a part of a larger movement that is a general upheaval of values; the phrases "museum" and "exhibition" are no more guarantees of seriousness and the existence of original works. Their limits with regard to tourism attractions are also getting more hazy concurrently. Many tours focused just on "instagrammable" sets—presented as entertainment rather than works—are blossoming as well as immersive digital presentations based on light projections and video mapping. Sometimes they verge on plagiarism. Not one unique piece on the horizon, but fantastic ideas to be had in these areas! "It goes without saying that fake Banksy exhibits are a bad thing," says Rikard Anderson, author of the credible blog 'Banksy unofficial'. "But [...] unpleasant things can have a positive side. At the end of the day, a Banksy exhibition, whatever it is, and whether or not it is authentic, is a tribute to the artist and a key part of his popularity. [...] If you don't really care about copyright infringement and such things, visiting such exhibitions will definitely give you pleasure. The choice is yours." In their defense, its organizers may also contend that these shows are a natural part of the underground culture of which Banksy is the absolute icon because of their parasitic and unofficial character and their challenge of accepted standards. This would be ignoring the fact that money still drives these events—which are marked by a crass commercial exploitation of his name. Would they not be free, at least more easily accessible, if they were truly performances honoring the rebellious attitude of the artist?
Banksy wouldn't say otherwise. www.vwart.com