We say Banksy; they say Goya
By The Art Newspaper. News, Issue 192, June 2008
Published online: 01 June 2008
While it is not unusual to refer to the art-historical canon
to explain the hidden depths of contemporary art, the auction houses exceeded themselves in their latest attempts to bestow legitimacy on the art on offer last month. In the catalogue for its evening sale on 14 May, Sotheby’s provided no text to explain Banksy’s 2006 Sale Ends Today but juxtaposed the work with Francisco de Goya’s etching They Will Not Arrive in Time. Unfortunately, this ambitious association did not seem to help and the work (est $600,000-$800,000) was bought in. Not
to be outdone in the hyperbole, Christie’s placed Elizabeth Peyton’s portrait, Kurt Cobain, 1995, (sold for $769,000) next
to Sandro Botticelli’s late 15th-century portrait, Ritratto di Giovane (also with no explanation for the link). However, the most explicit and lavishly
promoted comparison, also thanks to Sotheby’s, was Takashi Murakami’s My Lonesome Cowboy, 1998, printed as a centrefold between the
pages of an image of fellow Japanese artist Hokusai’s 1830 The Wave. Melanie Gerlis
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