They hit the Banksy jackpot.
The owners of a strip club, a warehouse and a run-down apartment building — all adorned with murals by Banksy — will score the biggest paydays out of all the street art produced during his month-long New York “residency,” art experts said Friday.
A broken-heart mural on a Red Hook warehouse, an image of a man holding flowers at the Hustler Club in Hell’s Kitchen and a geisha girl on the side of a Williamsburg apartment would likely fetch $200,000 to $500,000 a pop, according to art appraiser Stephan Keszler, whose gallery specializes in Banksy pieces.
Size, story and detail make some Banksys worth more than others, he said — which is why the heart-shaped art is at the top of his list.
“It’s beautiful and the whole story behind it is so amazing,” Keszler explained. “Another graffiti artist sprayed over some of it — you could ask why people want to destroy it.”
The same is true for the geisha mural, which a vandal defaced with spray paint before fans saved it by using alcohol wipes to remove the bad paint.
The Hustler Club’s mural, on the other hand, would sell well because it’s large and detailed, he said.
Keszler, who runs Keszler Gallery, has sold Banskys for more than $1 million. But he said the artist’s new pieces won’t likely fetch as much because a large amount of work was produced in a short time period.
He said owners of buildings may choose not to sell the pieces because they are heavy — some up to 800 pounds — and difficult to prove authentic.
