who me,?. I was saying that the building was always designed like that?

ooo ok ill let you off,

I am very proud to announce that tonight's showing of
"Exit Through The Gift Shop" in New York City (downtown)
at 7:45 is officially sold out. Congratulations Sir Banksy -
I will be downtown drinking before the 7:15 show if anyone wants to meet for a few drinks before and after the show.

As are the 730pm and 940pm shows at the Arclight in Los Angeles. I was able to snag front row seats, and I'm ecstatic about it.

Nice christ air skai!!

The seller doesn't reply much!!!

All shows at all times were sold out at the downtown New York opening night - it was a party atmosphere with people with big video cameras interviewing people before and after the movie - raffles where the movie theatre gave out Banksy posters -

Blimey....its only a picture!

Will Banksy now not post photos of this piece on his website Coz as soon as the photos appear on his site it confirms its by him.

What do you think?

That's ridiculous. I don't mean to be rude (especially to a forum moderator with my first post), but to actually think that could be true, one would have to have a pretty limited knowledge of the world, let alone of the art world. While the percentage of people aware of Banksy in the UK is undoubtedly much higher than in the states, and the level he's attained as a cultural icon in the UK is a phenomenon that doesn't exist the same way in the states, to actually think that there would only be 1000 people in the US aware of Banksy's name seems very uninformed.

Just to put things in perspective:

The US has a population of over 300 million people (UK about 60M).

Taking only one city (granted, a major one): New York City, an art capital of the world, and arguably the epicenter of street art and graffiti as we know it, has a population of 8.5 million. Do you actually believe that only 0.01% of people in NYC are aware of Banksy? There are easily over 25,000 registered art students in NYC alone (BA & Masters in art, meaning it's safe to presume that most are certainly well-aware of Banksy). That 25,000+ is a mere handful compared to the many, many more (again, still in NY alone) who would be aware of him: the working artists, designers, art-directors, gallerists/art dealers, art patrons, musicians, NYTimes readers, fashion designers, graffiti writers & street artists, the all-purpose hipsters and the name droppers ... And of course, the people who might not fit into his "typical" audience(s) but nonetheless enjoy his art (or for that matter, don't).

And that's just NY... LA has another 10 million people, and the corresponding numbers are similar. SF has less than 1M people, and I'd bet that 100,000 is a low estimate of people who know of Banksy in SF. Does that mean they have one (or even want one) hanging on their wall? Of course not. But know of him, yes.

Just take the street artists and graffiti writers in the US (talented or not);... Do you have any idea how many there are? No, me neither, but I'd put the number in the millions. Even saying that only 1/8 of them actually know of Banksy (which of course is an absurdly low percentage), that alone puts a number of 1000 to waste.

Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Miami, Washington DC, Boston, Denver, Detroit, San Diego, Portland, Seattle, Houston, Phoenix, Austin, Atlanta & Athens, Baltimore, Oakland/Berkeley, so on ... Just because one might not consider many of these cities as art-centric doesn't meant that they don't have large and thriving art communities. And the countless smaller cities and towns, where there are always pockets of folks who are informed about art or culture. Those people all add up. To a lot. It doesn't take much knowledge of current art to know of Banksy, and art-knowledge aside, one can merely be aware of modern culture to be aware of him.

As far as the mainstream... Consider that The Wall Street Journal has a circulation of 2M people, The New York Times 1M, The New Yorker 1M (and obviously many more US publications with very wide distribution have written on Banksy). I assure you, they're not writing those articles on Banksy for 1000 people. That's a massive and mainstream audience who are at least aware if not on board. And this is not including art-specific magazines - Juxtapoz, which is considered a small art magazine, has a circulation of 125,000 (anyone who picks up a copy of Juxtapoz will already know who Banksy is... And maybe 1/10 of the people I know who know Banksy actually buy Juxtapoz regularly). Other art publications have much higher circulation.

Step into any major chain bookstore in the US (in any city) and look through the art section... It's almost a guarantee that Banksy books will be prominentl/y featured, as well as countless graffiti and street art books, many with sections on Banksy. Wall and Piece, HSH, haven't sold a few thousand copies (n the US); they've sold many, many thousands. Most people might not be aware of Existencilism, but Wall and Piece is another story.

ETTGS selling out it's NY & LA opening weekends.

And so on.

But 1000 people? No. Not even remotely close. That's absurd.

ANYWAY.

Regarding the La Brea piece: IMO, there's no doubt that there's well more to the story than Banksy piecing that particular wall and it being taken down. I'm convinced that it must have been orchestrated to some degree. To what degree, by who, or how, I have no idea... I could make some guesses, but that's about it. Banksy may not have even know anything about what was going on. But for that immaculate piece to show up on a perfectly clean, essentially "cut-out" wall (sized to fit), set conveniently behind a fence (remaining untouched for a couple of days while it's photographed and blogged about), on a property associated with Ace Gallery... And then to be be cleanly removed and carted away by Ace Gallery a few days after it receives wide public exposure is not random. Consider that this happened during the Los Angeles premiere of the film, so media/blog exposure on this particular piece was undoubtedly far, far higher than it normally have been (which still would have been high). As well, Banksy's presence in LA for the premiere lent a validation to the piece actually being his, confirmed or not. Ace is a major gallery, and has been for many, years (started early '60's). The gallery has some very deep roots (as well as some very sordid histories) with both major artists and major art patrons. Again, this is just my opinion, but I simply can't see how this would be a fluke.

Would certainly be interesting to find out what went down and how (besides the piece itself, I mean).

I also think it's interesting there's that Koons reference in a piece that winds up dropping right into the lap of a heavy-duty gallery... Among other things, Chrismas's deep-pocket art-world patrons would be among a crowd who'd covet a reference like that more than others might... But that could be reading too much into it.

I suppose I just wish he'd make one for me too... Doug Chrismas has plenty of art. Maybe Banksy'll break the old HMV stencil out for me. Doesn't have to be special multi-color or anything... White on black'd be perfect.

I enjoyed your first post and hope in the future you do a little more research about the individual you were publicly quoting before posting,
please find a copy of my email that I cut and pasted where I reference my 1,000 people in the U.S. comment -
"I was being a bit dramatic in order to provoke some discussion about the popularity of Banksy in the U.S."
Welcome to the forum I am an assistant moderator not the Moderator - I like Banksy and math is not one of my strengths.

Because that was such an absurdly long post, and off-topic, I'm going to repost this bit, which is actually about the La Brea piece (not that it matters, but I currently live in LA and was lucky enough to have seen the piece while up).

--

Regarding the La Brea piece: IMO, there's no doubt that there's well more to the story than Banksy piecing that particular wall and it being taken down. I'm convinced that it must have been orchestrated to some degree. To what degree, by who, or how, I have no idea... I could make some guesses, but that's about it. Banksy may not have even know anything about what was going on. But for that immaculate piece to show up on a perfectly clean, essentially "cut-out" wall (sized to fit), set conveniently behind a fence (remaining untouched for a couple of days while it's photographed and blogged about), on a property associated with Ace Gallery... And then to be be cleanly removed and carted away by Ace Gallery a few days after it receives wide public exposure is not random. Consider that this happened during the Los Angeles premiere of the film, so media/blog exposure on this particular piece was undoubtedly far, far higher than it normally have been (which still would have been high). As well, Banksy's presence in LA for the premiere lent a validation to the piece actually being his, confirmed or not. Ace is a major gallery, and has been for many, years (started early '60's). The gallery has some very deep roots (as well as some very sordid histories) with both major artists and major art patrons. Again, this is just my opinion, but I simply can't see how this would be a fluke.

Would certainly be interesting to find out what went down and how (besides the piece itself, I mean).

I also think it's interesting there's that Koons reference in a piece that winds up dropping right into the lap of a heavy-duty gallery... Among other things, Chrismas's deep-pocket art-world patrons would be among a crowd who'd covet a reference like that more than others might... But that could be reading too much into it.

I suppose I just wish he'd make one for me too... Doug Chrismas has plenty of art. Maybe Banksy'll break the old HMV stencil out for me. Doesn't have to be special multi-color or anything... White on black'd be perfect.

--

Anyway, sorry for the repost, but my other post was way to long & way too off topic and so I thought I'd consolidate, primarily because I'd be interested to hear comments...

I appreciate the clarification - you are a welcome addition to our forum -

In 1987 Giancarlo Politi did an interview with Koons. Earlier in this thread, someone referenced the single line, but if you read the entire quote, it provides the context and helps the viewer understand what may have inspired Banksy:

"(The Public is) being deceived on different levels of thought, because they’re educated in abstraction and luxury on different income levels. The upper class would love to pull an individual with ambition and gumption from a lower class to the verge of the upper class, because that’s where the big takings of power are. If they can have you move through social mobility up to the edge of the upper class, they can go in and in one killing get 250 chips; but you’ll never break through, because luxury and abstraction are the guard dogs of the upper class, and the pursuit of luxury is degradation." -Jeff Koons, Flash Art Magazine, 1987

So, that is essentially the story of Banksy's career, and with that in mind, I personally believe this is what may have happened:

Since one can assume Thierry isn't helping Banksy get walls in LA anymore (he's keeping them for himself?), he had to turn to another source.
This source, naturally, as part of the art-world, mentioned that Ace Gallery owner Doug Chrismas owns property. In consideration that he was a notoriously shady dealer who stands for everything that Banksy HATES in the art world, he figured that Chrismas and Ace Gallery would be the perfect target...
Like dangling a carrot in front of the Donkey, Banksy made his installation on Doug's property; knowing full well that he wouldn't be able to resist the urge to gain something from it. Chrismas took the bait, removed the piece. Banksy then distances himself from the work, making the dealer of ill-repute look like an even bigger fool when he has to put it on Ebay to get rid of it.

It's just another art world power-play. Banksy is slowly teaching some very important lessons to the high-art world right now. We all know that with the internet, The old rules no longer apply, and I believe that's why he muzzled the Koons dog.

It's all very logical, and yes, I believe that truth is often stranger than fiction.