art crime

A London Times article details the high price property owners can net for selling walls painted by the now infamous graffiti artist, Banksy. Though his work sells at auctions for multimillion dollar sums, Banksy will not see a cent of the money from the sale. All the money will go to the property owners. It is interesting that what the property owners likely saw as vandalism when the walls were originally defaced will give them an early retirement.

Banksy himself put it best: “I love the way capitalism finds a place — even for its enemies.”

A gallery showing in Los Angeles this month will feature work from one of the city’s best known graffiti crews, Angles Will Rise. The crew is famous for its West Coast “wild style” — both for commissioned walls and illegal tags. What’s interesting is that one of the artists said in a Los Angeles Times’ story that the gallery space allowed them to explore new angles to their art that they normally couldn’t because they were rushed or feared getting arrested.

I wonder if more graffiti artists were to take their skill indoors if their art work would start being appreciated for its artistic merits and stop being treated as a public nuisance, or worse, a crime.