Banksy’s a bust!
Artworks by the British graffiti artist during his NYC tour last year are selling so poorly, even the Brooklyn Museum won’t take one for free!
Banksy embarked on a surprise, one-month tour last October, leaving the city littered with free artwork, from a mini-Sphinx recreated with cinder blocks and Styrofoam in Willets Point, Queens, to a painting of a balloon heart on a factory wall in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
“People were basically seeing dollar signs,” said Joseph Gross Gallery director Casey Gleghorn, whose gallery repped a truck-door piece from the NYC tour with “The grumpier you are, the more assh—s you meet” written across it.
Two big pieces repped by Manhattan’s Keszler Gallery — the balloon-heart wall and a spray-painted car door — failed to sell in Miami in February, despite a $250,000 offer on the balloon and $145,000 for the car door. They had wanted between $400,000 and $600,000 and up to $300,000 respectively.
“It gave the impression that Banksy’s market was weak, but people were just asking too much for them. People were getting greedy,” said Gleghorn.
Stephan Keszler of Keszler Gallery is now slashing the prices of his four NYC Banksy pieces — which include the Sphinx from a side street behind Citi Field and the “grumpy” truck door — for the Art Silicon Valley fair next week. He quotes $300,000 for the Sphinx, high $200,000s for “grumpy,” $425,000 for the balloon wall and $200,000 for the car door.
Dealing with the post-Banksy frenzy was “overwhelming,” said Cara Tabachnick, whose family owns the East Williamsburg building on Graham Avenue where Banksy painted two geishas.
Her family approached the Brooklyn Museum to offer it to them for free — although the museum would have to cover removal costs — but never heard back after museum staff visited. “They, I guess, decided it wasn’t worth it,” said Tabachnick.
To protect the painting, the building owners covered it with plexiglass and then a roller door on top. Art lovers must ask the shop staff at the opticians on the ground floor to let them have a peek.
A specialist in preservation and an art auctioneer are both expected to visit the piece to see whether they should try removing the wall — which would likely cost tens of thousands of dollars.
Tabachnick reckons her piece could be worth up to $650,000. “We have a real sense of pride and excitement around the piece . . . Doesn’t mean we know what to do with it,” she said.
One roller door that Banksy emblazoned with a fake Plato quote was repped by Keszler Gallery, but the owner of the Greenpoint store where the work was done has taken it off the market and put it in storage.