A lucky punter has discovered the Banksy print they copped for less than $300 at the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art’s gift shop is actually an original planted by the real-deal himself, potentially worth $150,000 – and now on track to be auctioned online for a tidy sum via Smith & Singer. Which once again just goes to show that fortune favours the bold whoever it damn chooses to favour.
The anonymous owner inadvertently acquired the screen print of ‘Love Is In The Air’ back in 2003, which depicts the iconic masked man throwing a bouquet of flowers in place of a Molotov cocktail. For the better part of the last two decades, they remained blissfully unaware it was in fact #450 of 500 limited editions crafted by the hand of Banksy himself.
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“The right to protest is considered one of the hallmarks of democracy,” notes the Smith & Singer listing.
“From the American War of Independence to the Berlin Wall, protest represents discourse, dissent, change. Embodying this, Banksy’s paintings, prints, and political gestures are subtly on point, with a hammer blow to authority and middle finger to art-world pretension.” Â
“The artist’s irresistible ascent is a matter of hit and run. Choosing walls and locations whose meaning he will invert is part of his iconoclasm. His strike into these spaces is about change and movement.”
Bidding for the Banksy print in question planted at the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art closes 10 PM (AEST) on May 13th.
