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November 25, 2024 • 10 mins

A very special exhibition is opening in Wellington this week. The Art of Bansky sees more than 160 works from the elusive UK artist on display at Wellington's Takina Convention Centre. 

The exhibition is coming direct from London and curator Michel Boersma has made the trip to Wellington for the opening. 

He joined Nick Mills in the studio and brought with him a piece from the famous artist. 

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News Talk SEDB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Now it's sounding like we're a bit flustered in here.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
We are a bit flustered in here because we've just
got a very special or we've got two very special guests,
and I'm looking at at one of them right now
and I've always got a tear in my eye. It's
a beautiful framed artist's work of Banksy and it's sitting
in my studio. You'll see photos of on our Facebook
page because we've taken photos of it. And the creator

(00:36):
QATA of the show. Get that name right is Michelle Bosma.
Did I get it closer?

Speaker 4 (00:42):
You get it very close.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Welcome to New Zealand. Firstly, welcome to our station and Wellington.
How are you finding it so far? You flew an overnighter.

Speaker 4 (00:51):
Oh yeah, we've been in there for two days loading
in the art and it's great being here.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Okay, how much of the art looks like the piece
that you've got right in front of me.

Speaker 4 (01:00):
Well, we've got one hundred and over one hundred and
sixty pieces. It's the largest touring collection in the world
of authentic so we don't have replicas. Everything is authenticated,
made by Banksy for collectors or for colleagues and lovers.
And what you have here is unique. A year ago,
nobody knew it existed. It had been in a drawer

(01:21):
with a former girlfriend of Banksy, and it's the original
flower thrower which he gave as a Valentine's Day gift.
And it's a small wooden a painting and it was
seven years before he released the image publicly. And there's
a message, private message on the back.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
Can I tell you? Can I ask you? Not tell you?

Speaker 3 (01:41):
Can I ask you what you think the value of
that piece sitting on my discers.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
It's never been to auction, has never been offered, but
it's it's it's one of our most price pieces.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
It's very so it's worth a lot of money.

Speaker 4 (01:54):
It's worth a lot of money.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
I mean, we were told by your promoter the insurance
cost of bringing this show to New Zealand. So have
you put a value on the artwork that's in ta
Quina right now?

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (02:05):
Yeah, yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:06):
Can you tell us swords at Haighly Secret?

Speaker 4 (02:08):
But we don't talk about the insurance values. It's about
It's about the art. This is what I like about
our exhibition. People always read about Banksy and about having
a stencil on a building and and suddenly the building
is worth like fortune. What we are showing you is
a complete overview of his career. And everybody has a
Banksy in his mind, what Banks he is and who

(02:29):
Banks he is. And at the end of this exhibition,
at the end of walking through one hundred and sixty works,
everybody colors it in slightly different and like we've got
videos of associates of Banks who worked with him on
the art, and so you get a complete new layer
of understanding of the works. And then the money drops away.
It's not about it, well.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
It is about the money because it's a very very
expensive thing to bring to New Zealand. And do you
tour with the continuous So is this the only one
that goes around the country.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
We have two.

Speaker 4 (02:59):
We've got two collections. One is now in North America,
one is here. We've got over three hundred and thirty
banks to work with collectors who collect and buy from
Banks himself.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
And they just lend them to you to go on
to it.

Speaker 4 (03:11):
We we we we have gone them on loan and
this is now for now the end of this of
this collection. It's just come straight out of London. It
did like two months ago. He was still in Charing
Cross Road in the in the West End.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Wow, did it cost much to go and see it?

Speaker 4 (03:25):
In the wistling it's a it's a it's a it's
a paid exhibition, but it's I think for what you get,
it's it's undervalued.

Speaker 3 (03:32):
Now you might not know this, but I love this
idea that Shirt Macpherson's done. You buy a ticket and
you can go any time you want.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Did you know that it's not actually a ticket for
a specific day? Did you know? You didn't obviously didn't
know that.

Speaker 4 (03:43):
I know that we have a ticket that you can
visit once.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
Yeah, you can't. You can't.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
I'm not saying you got to see you every day.
Are you here for the whole a whole to it?

Speaker 2 (03:52):
No?

Speaker 4 (03:53):
No, No, we're we're leaving after the opening.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
Oh do you so you come up set it up,
make sure that it looks all right?

Speaker 4 (03:58):
Yeah, and then that everything is safe and that the
building is secure and all that stuff, and that it
is hanging in the best way possible. At the moment
we're lighting it. Like experiencing this EXI is not like
in a gallery or a museum. It's museum great, but
when you walk in there's rock music playing. The lights
are off. We're only lighting the art and it's a.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Whole nowre you on the ground floor or the first floor.

Speaker 4 (04:17):
We're on the ground floor, okay.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
So as you walk and you go past the cafe
and there you are.

Speaker 4 (04:21):
You're you know, you're going straight in and then that
we've made this mace and there's two hundred and fifty
specialist lights. It's very theatrical in the way that you displayed.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
I want to ask you because everyone would ask you
everywhere you go on tour with us, and I'm sure
I'm not going to get the right answer.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
But have you meet Banks.

Speaker 4 (04:42):
We've corresponded, so you can't.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
You won't confirm or deny that.

Speaker 4 (04:46):
He's been to the exhibition in London and his team
has been and we've we've got an arrangement with him
with regards to making sure that the art is authenticated.
So I share with him the list before we go
on tour to a next city for these changes. And
sometimes you get like a good guy.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
I mean, on mouth form, does he sound like like
a real widow?

Speaker 4 (05:08):
Depends on the day.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Canny b Rugby. Oh yes, Kenny, Yes.

Speaker 4 (05:14):
The guy has got a sense, great sense of humorne.
He's an amazing artist. But he can be he can be. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
What is the magic of Banksy?

Speaker 4 (05:23):
I think the the ease with which anybody can engage
with the art, Like anybody can look at the image
and and you don't have to think for minutes, and
then you have the.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
Every piece like that, sorry to interrupt, that was really
rude to me. Is every piece like you know, you
look at that piece that you've got on the studio
right now, and you know Botham knows, I know, it's
it's no.

Speaker 4 (05:45):
Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that people don't know
our banks. It's like we've got statues. Nobody really knew
that he was doing satues, but we've got statues. And
but the thing is also the unknown. People ask me
like do you know who banks he is? And they
go like do you really want to know? And then
most of the people shy away, so you don't want
to see who the wizard is.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
You don't don't want to see the wizard. I love that.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
How does he stay anonymous? I mean in this world,
how do you actually stand on it. I mean, it's
pretty hard to stay in on us anyway, isn't it.

Speaker 4 (06:15):
It's in a lot of people's interests to keep it
that way. But also every month in the UK there's
a newspaper of saying, oh, Johnny X is banksy, and
once in a while they have it right, and then
a month later they expose another Johnny X. And and

(06:36):
that's the thing.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
What would it do to his value of as artwork
if he did get exposed.

Speaker 4 (06:40):
I don't think it's about exposing. It's about him. If
he would go out and say I'm Banksy, that's that
would be in a way, it would bring the market down.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
Okay, I might start going around saying I'm Beks. He won't.
Maybe you are.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
You don't look like a guy that could lose his
red quickly, obviously, you don't look like a guy that's
gotta gotta get grumpy. So you've lost me on that one.
How do you choose what artworks you use?

Speaker 4 (07:05):
I like to show people like a great breath of
the career. And luckily we've forty two collectors we work
with who are as enthusiastic. We've taken away all these
investor collectors. These are people, some of them who are
collectors from the beginning before it was Banksy, and they
find stuff, they collect stuff, and then oh, by the way,

(07:29):
I have this. And then you get a little email
and like this, this is an email from a lady
who says I am a former girlfriend of Banksy. Well,
when you get that email, you're like, well what. Then
you talk and then you do the due diligence and
you find this piece that wasn't known to the audience.
We've got it in Toronto. We've got a piece which
is which was owned by a Hollywood a lister which
nobody knew for twenty years. It was on his wall,

(07:51):
nobody knew who existed. And it's the Mona Lisa of Banksy.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
And why is no one exposed?

Speaker 3 (07:56):
And why is one of his girlfriends have exposed and
must have photos with them, and you know, letters and
love letters and stuff. Why has no one exposed them?

Speaker 4 (08:05):
It's in nobody's intrested. You don't want to be the
person who does it.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
You obviously haven't read the Bible. Woman scorned as a woman,
what is it you know?

Speaker 4 (08:13):
Oh no, no, I've spoken with these ladies like we've
discovered that because this is a Valentine's Day gift. And
on the opening in Regency, London last year, I had
three ex girlfriends of Banksy with me and one of
them says, this one is green background and one of
them goes like, hey, I've received the same but blue,

(08:33):
and at that moment four people are including myself, were
looking at each other going like what. And then you
find out that yeah, he was a bit of a
naughty boy.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
Is he married?

Speaker 4 (08:43):
He got kids, He's married.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
You're not going to give back your way. I'm not
going to get international headlines out of you have I that's.

Speaker 4 (08:52):
All about for You've got an international headline of the
largest Banksy exhibition in Wellington and it starts tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah, sorry, starts.

Speaker 4 (09:02):
Thursday, Thursday until the twentieth of January.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
Okay, and do you know what ours? I suppose that's
a silly question to ask you.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
What the hours is a time in the day?

Speaker 4 (09:11):
Tend to.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
It's been wonderful meeting you.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
I really hope that you have a great stay in
Wellington and New Zealand and that thousands and thousands of
people from all over New Zealand during this holiday break
turn up to have a look at it.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
I mean, I'm excited to see it.

Speaker 4 (09:27):
You need to come.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
I'm definitely. I want to come before you go because
I just want to say I'll show you. Well, you
promise that you I'm sure. Yeah. I just think it's incredible.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
It's I sound a little bit emotional because I've got
a piece of art work worth a lot of money.
Once you go out of the studio, I'm going to
tell people what it's worth.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
It's worth it.

Speaker 3 (09:46):
Then you don't get told of but it's worth one
hell of a lot of money, this piece of artwork.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
And I'm with the curator of the show, Banksy. It's
on it.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
Taquina, please turn up and support this is set. It
looks so amazing. I appreciate you a lot, Michelle for
coming in today and I am going to come down
and have a look.

Speaker 4 (10:06):
Thanks for having us.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
Great.

Speaker 1 (10:09):
For more from Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills, listen live
to news Talks It'd be Wellington from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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