When notorious graffiti artist Banksy tried to sell original canvases in Central Park at $60 a pop, he got few takers. A week later, a booth offering fake Banksys at the same price sold out in just one hour.
In a tongue-in-cheek social commentary of Banksy fever, self-described artist and professional hoaxer Dave Cicirelli and his buddies gleefully unloaded 40 knockoff from a pop-up stand outside to the park Saturday to a crowd of eager buyers.
“Same price. Fake art,” Cicirelli noted on a video of the sale posted to YouTube.
As the camera rolls across a sign reading “Fake Banksy” and pans in on some of the tag artist’s most famous pieces – including “Heavy Weaponry Rocket Bomb Elephant” and his trademark stenciled monkey, wearing a “Keep it Real” sandwich board — passersby stop, do doubletakes, and then fork over their cash.
Each canvas came with a “legally notarized” “Certificate of Inauthenticity.”
The fake Banksy booth was set up in the same area, where, on October 13, Banksy famously offered scores of his art on the cheap.
In seven hours, just three people shelled out for the pieces, paying a total of $420 for eight pieces of art that has been estimated to be worth about $250,000. The rest went unsold.
Cicirelli’s video of the sale mimics the style of the footage Banksy posted online after his own Saturday surprise.
“All 40 sold in just one hour. Including the price sign,” Cicirelli noted.
Meanwhile, Bansky on Monday unveiled the 21st installment in his month-long New York “residency.”
The wall art, of a butler bearing a tray of spray cans as a small boy in period clothing spray paints “Ghetto 4 Life” on the wall, appeared in the South Bronx.
