14 DAY TRIAL // Bansky is now in New York City on a month-long residency called “Better Out Than In,” which means that the good people of NYC should expect to stumble across a Banksy piece where they least expect it. Or several of them in one place, for that matter.
To prove that many still regard as art only those items to which you can assign a price tab by their association with a famous name, Banksy set up a stall selling his own original, signed stencils.
They usually go for $30,000 (€22,117) a small one, but Banksy sold 8 of them during an entire day and made only $420 (€309.6), despite the fact that he included there some of his most famous (read: mediated and readily recognizable) works.
He posted the video of the “experiment” on his official BanksyNYC website, with the mention that “This was a one off. The stall will not be there again today,” so you know not to go looking for bargains.
I can only imagine how the people who accidentally bought the original canvases must have felt when they found out they were sitting on a fortune.