When I Stencil My Masterpiece: Banksy Thefts

Graffiti is generally illegal. Unless it's created by a celebrated, anonymous artist named Banksy. Then it's worth millions and ripe for the stealin'. People steal Banksy pieces, even the murals off of walls of buildings. Is it illegal to steal something that's already technically illegal? We shall see. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio zero.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Elizabeth. How you doing, I've done pretty well. I'm missing you.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
Yeah, I know, it's been like twenty minutes.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
I know. I was like, hey, I went outside, I
forgot who you are. I walked back in, Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
It happens all the time, Yeah, all the time. Do
you know what's ridiculous?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yes? I do, Elizabeth, Oh do sure? Yeah. Do you
ever heard of a little drink called gator load gator load? Yeah?

Speaker 3 (00:24):
You know, I know, gator raid.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Oh yeah, you're familiar. Gator raid also used to make
a thing called gator load.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Oh yeah, it's this, okay.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Gator load two to eighty.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
So.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Gatorload is a quote specially formulated to supply the body
with useful carbohydrates, which the body converts to glycogen without
the bulk of large quantities of pasta. And it is
this extra supply of glycogen prior to a strenuous athletic
event that helps you perform at your peak for longer
periods of time. Gator load is available in a convenient,
easy to use twelve ounce singles BA ba blah. Carbo

(00:56):
loading because carbo loading as a drink. Right. Yeah, Well,
there's a funny little bit, which is do you know
much about the Chicago Bulls, Michael Jordan Utah Jazz, I
told you a little bit about them recently.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Enough to be dangerous.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
You go, remember in the trains you loft trains, I
told you about the trains the Great Air during train heist,
I mentioned them shoes and they were sold in the
Utah Jazz the finals with the balls in that series
during when there was the flu game in nineteen ninety seven. Well,
in back in nineteen eighty eight, Gatoraded invented this thing

(01:33):
called Gator Load, and they hadn't really you know, popularized it,
but it was basically spaghetti in a bottle.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
It's like a thing of insured.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yes, it's the opposite of what you want before a game.
So the equipment manager before well yeah, maybe or even
two days before. So flash forward at this point, we're
in nineteen ninety seven the NBA Finals Salt Lake City.
The equipment manager for the Bulls accidentally got Gator Load
instead of Gator Rays and the players were like having

(02:02):
cramps and their stomachs were bloated distended. It was one
of the worst fails of all time. Yeah, because gator.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Load that both teams are just the bulls.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
One trainer said, just the bulls. The trainer said it
was like eating baked potatoes.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
Oh god, that's like, that's like the episode of the
Office where Michael Scott carbo loads like five minutes before
running a race with you know exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
So the Bulls ended up losing seventy eight seventy three.
If you hear the point totals, you're like, the bulls,
What that's crazy? Here we go?

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Why close?

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Yeah, but they came back to win the series Go Bulls.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
Yeah it is. You know what else is ridiculous? Elizabeth
mass Appeal counterculture.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
I like that.

Speaker 4 (02:47):
Huh.

Speaker 3 (03:07):
This is ridiculous crime A podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists,
and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and
one hundred percent ridiculous.

Speaker 4 (03:19):
You damn right right right?

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Hell saren Are you familiar with Banksy the Tagger graffiti artist? Yes,
let me woman explain to you please. I love that
banks He's a pseudonym. What so it's not it's not
a real name, like, it's not I know, the government
name English. He's an English artist, like we said, a
graffiti artist, but not in the sense of taggers or

(03:43):
like those who just scribble on things.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah. Now he throws pieces up and does like real art.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
Yeah, the art, it's actually very much in the tradition
of Italian graffiti art, like the o Grafiti. Yeah, that's
very visually striking and political. So like use of negative space,
monochromatic palettes, really bold color as highlights. It's very there's
immediacy to it, accessibility in the imagery, and he primarily used.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
For him this is great, so welcome.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
He primarily uses stencil.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Base in the sense that's why I think of the
Italians as the stencil Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Yeah, exactly, And so it's quick to pull off, it's
visually sharp, and that technique also aligns with earlier sweet
artists like Bleack Lorat, you have heard of him.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
And also it also conforms with the hyper consumer and
the mass production aspects of our culture.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
So Black Lorat was really the one who pioneered stencil
graffiti in the eighties in France. But and Banksy rather
than aligns with him, you could go so far as
to say he ripped him off steals. Yeah, And so
Black Lorat started in nineteen eighty six there was a
general strike by students and workers that just ground France
to a halt. That's when we started seeing these things

(04:59):
a lot of visual and thematic similarities. But Banksy also
does installations mixed media. I'm going to put this into
art speak for you. Banksy's uvre is rich in political
and social critique. So basically he confronts themes like capitalism, consumerism, war, authoritarianism, surveillance,

(05:21):
and it's satirical work, thought provoking, and it blends like
dark humor with this powerful imagery.

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Yeah, like making light of domination or subjugation.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Right, And let me give you a brief history. So
in the nineties, Banksy emerged as part of the underground
graffiti scene in Bristol, England. Ah Yes, and then moved
to London in the early two thousands, and that's where
his stencil based stuff got, you know, war recognition. He
starts satirizing politics, consumerism, war like targeting the powerful. In

(05:54):
two thousand and four, Banksy released Banksy's Die Faced to
like to face but a fake ten pound note featuring
Princess Diane. He in two thousand and five, painted on
the West Bank barrier in Palestine doing this really powerful
anti war.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Imagery lift up the Wall.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
Two thousand and six created Barely Legal, which was an
LA art show that had a live spray painted elephant.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
Frintique Global Poverty twenty ten Directed Exit through the Gift Shop. Yes,
great documentary, Yeah me too, about street art commercialization of
the art world. Nominated for an Academy Award.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
I bet he did not attend.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
Yeah no, well we don't know, Thank you, Elizabeth. Twenty thirteen.
I did like a one month residency in New York
and left Newark all over the city each day. Twenty
twenty did a COVID nineteen themed graffiti in the London underground.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
I remember that.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
Twenty twenty two painted murals in UK during the war
depicting like the resilience and the defiance of the people. Yeah.
So Banksy was originally very counterculture, and then people like
Brad Pitt started buying pieces and other artists started to
bite the style, and it kind of has gone a
little out of fashion. It's not edgy, Yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Would say that it's become like so much so that
it's canon. It's like museum.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
Yes, yeah, most definitely So you know, Banksy is widely
celebrated and that runs counter to the counter culture origin.
But there are a lot of criticisms. So there's accusations
of commercialism and hypocrisy. You know, he's supposed to be
all anti capitalist and anti establishment, but then the pieces

(07:43):
sell for millions of dollars at auction.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
I thought you were down for ad Busters, man.

Speaker 3 (07:50):
Every time there's an accusation of exploitation of street art culture,
other graffiti La the other graffiti, or to see Banksy
is like profiting off of this culture that's criminalized for others.
People talk about that issue of originality. You know, it's

(08:12):
highly derivative about you know, the Italians and Bla Clarat.
So are you a fan?

Speaker 2 (08:17):
You like, I've been a fan. I wouldn't say that.
I'm like, I still love Bosquiote, like like you'll always
hear me love, even though he's become very much a
mainstream artist that people are now like Dutch's biting, but
it's become like a language of visual language, so it's
lost a lot of its hits.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
But with Bosquiot, it's almost as if people have an
idea of what the work is, but they're not familiar
with his work itself.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah, because there's so many pieces I never ever see,
like the Joe Lewis stuff that so like, I really
like his stuff a lot, and that hasn't happened the
way that it has a Banksy where it's been almost
drained of its meaning and value for me as a
as a witness to it or as you know, even
as a participant when it's its street art.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
They're not particularly challenging the Banksy pieces.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
And the critique is a little bit uh wan at
this point.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
I feel like they harkened back to that early two
thousands when people were really starting to share images online
and use them as like avatars.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
It feels very George W. Bush, like a rock war
kind of like what's protest this like? And then carry
out to like all that World Trade Organization protest that
energy had. He's like on top of that wave surface.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
You had online image sharing for the first time, so
like you could make statements with pictures more than an
other means of communication, and you could really you could
suddenly save images really easily. So yeah, full Tumblr. We
hearted picturist aspect the internet, you know, now we're like
oversaturated with it.

Speaker 2 (09:42):
There's a gift for everything post social media.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
Don't get me started on AI art, but like Banksy
to me, represents that time where those striking, powerful images
were harder to come by and anyway, so.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
It was also so easy to commodify things and to
claim them. Now you know, like not that it was
always easy just right click, but I mean, like it
was not the on demand.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
Stuff too, because you when I was looking up examples
of banks the art you can have like it's printed
on all shower curtains and like it just.

Speaker 2 (10:14):
Raw covers fans for your room.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Bizarre. So, like I said, Banksy's real identity is not known.
We don't know. Still, there are all sorts of theories
though let me give you some of my favorites. The
most popular theory is that Banksy is actually Robin Gunningham,
a British artist. He was born in Bristol in nineteen
seventy three. Alliance with Banksy's known connections to that street

(10:40):
art scene. In two thousand and eight, The Mail on
Sunday conducted an investigation linking Banksy to Gunningham. Based on
interviews with former classmates acquaintances. They found all these old
photos where Gunningham has like a spray paint stencil kit
that's like similar to the banks style.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
Sure.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
In twenty sixteen, this is so crazy, scientists at Queen
Mary University of London used geographic profiling like you do
with serial killers, to analyze the locations of Banksy's artwork,
and then the study found that Banksy's pieces were often
created near places linked to Gunningham's past residences and social activities.

(11:22):
And then after like the rise to fame, Gunningham like
pretty much disappeared from public records and like, so there's
all the speculation like he's laying though. Another theory, one
that I like is that Banksy is Robert del Naya
of Massive Attack.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
This is the one I've heard.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
And I don't say that just because I'm a huge
huge massive attack, I mean like huge, but it's there's
a good argument to be made. So before becoming a musician,
del Naya he was a well known graffiti artist from Bristol.
He was part of the Wild Bunch crew and that
was like they were the pioneers of Bristol's street art

(11:59):
scene eighties. Yeah, even Banksy himself has credited del Naya
as an influence so right. Journalist Craig Williams he noticed
a pattern between Massive Attacks tour dates and the appearance
of new Banksy artworks. Ooh, like you can connect them
all through these various places. They both have very similar

(12:21):
strong anti establishment views reflected in their work. Banksy wrote
the forward to a book about del Naya's artwork in
twenty thirteen. Banksy's month long New York residency was rumored
to be inspired by Massive Attacks album one hundredth Window,
and then when they asked him directly Delnaya, he denied it.

(12:43):
But it's like, yeah, but I know him.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
Huh. So.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Another theory is.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
The other theories actually got more.

Speaker 3 (12:50):
Another theory is that Banksy is Jamie Hewlett, the co
creator of Gorillas. Oh yeah, okay, yeah, there are big
similarities in like the artistic style and the sames. But
it's not like supported by evidence.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Yeah, I would say that one matches like wonder wat
it just sounds fun. Yeah, I think Robert from Massive
Attacks much more.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
The theory of what I really believe is the case, oh,
is that Banksy isn't one person but rather a collective Ah.

Speaker 2 (13:14):
Of course that makes the most sense.

Speaker 3 (13:15):
Some people think that banks he's a group of artists
together rather than a single person. That explains like the
large scale and rapid production of work all over the.

Speaker 2 (13:25):
World, okay, and also the travel.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
The travel, yeah, because like multiple pieces appear in multiple
countries within a short time period. Uh huh, So it's
really unlikely that one person can do that. He also
has these large installations dismal land Waldoff Hotel that require
really significant manpower and logistics and resources. So like a

(13:48):
group of artists working under the Banksy name that makes
it feasible.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
Could it be like a dread pirate Robert situation where
there was a bank see, and then he hired a
new banks to be his assistant, and then he let
him become the banks and he's retired, and then that
one has found a new assistant and let him become Banksy. Yeah,
or like Manudo.

Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah, or technically double O seven or yeah exactly.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
I think it's like they got together and thought, let's
call it Banksy.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
I like that. That's actually interesting. And a bank of artists.

Speaker 3 (14:19):
Because that's the other thing. Okay, So you have all
these diverse artistic styles and media. There are some stylistic
differences from one piece to the next. Yeah, so that
suggests multiple contributors.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
This is the most fascinating.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
I know, it really is. Remember, in twenty sixteen, Queen
Mary University did the serial killer profiling, mentioned that it
found that Banksy's works were concentrated in certain areas, right,
but that new ones were appearing worldwide at the same.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
Time, so he couldn't be Yeah, there's this.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
It would be absolutely impossible. Now it's not. Maybe. So
some compare Banksy to other anonymous or like semi anonymous
artist collectives like the Gorilla Girls female art activists woo ming.
That's those are those Italian authors who published under a
show right, I was mystery novel, right, Yeah, it was

(15:13):
like as a woman.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
A woman won awards for it, and they're like, what
do we do?

Speaker 3 (15:17):
Corpus Delecti is a French street art group, so it's
been done before. But then thanks to Reddit, there's my
new favorite theory. Banks he's a woman. And it's not
my favorite theory because I believe it.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
I'm kind of embarrassed as sex assigned. I didn't never
consider that.

Speaker 3 (15:35):
It's not a good theory. There there's this user Bobolon
who posted onto the subreddit pop culture chat not too
long ago, the super in depth argument that Banksy is
not only a woman, but a very specific woman. This
is actually what gave me the idea to talk about

(15:56):
banks Yeah, so Bob in Law came in hot with
the theory, super aggressive, like out of nowhere. To the
it appeared to be to the puzzle of the people
who post on there, it was so entertaining. So Bobylon
Babylon was sort of combative, like I said, and they

(16:16):
felt really passionate about the matter. It's like they kicked
down the door to the library's like what exactly? So anyway,
they think that Banksy is actually Scottish artist Lucy Mackenzie
hm a good Glasswegian. So I would try and explain
the theory as presented in the Reddit post, but it's

(16:38):
very long and convoluted. It was two parts. I only
read part one. It involves analyzing the backgrounds of photos
and like knowing the layouts of buildings and interpreting interpersonal relationships.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
It's a lot like JFK conspiracy, for like comparing a
photo and an outline of a head.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
Like from what angle would that see the street? And
I found the whole thing cross posted on the Banksy
suburb it and the top comment there kind of sums
it up. TikTok drop Top wrote quote, I think what
is more likely is you have an obsession with this
Lucy McKenzie girl. Your theories hold absolutely no water. They're
all ham fisted ramblings that make no sense at all

(17:18):
when looked at through any logical lens like ouch wow.
So no matter who they really are.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
About coming in hot, I mean hot, hot.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
Hot, well Peter Tosh for you, So it doesn't matter
who Banksy really is. Banksy's making serious coin on the
art real.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
And you know what happens when you have art and
you have money? Oh yes, yes, crime there it is crime.
Banksies get stolen, even the ones stenciled on buildings.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
So I want to tell you about some of these today,
but first we need to pause for some ads the
rich Feast that keeps us available to the people for Freeze,
and when we return, Banksy zaren bgsy. First off, did

(18:24):
you hear about anything cool that you wanted to buy
and or know about in those ads?

Speaker 2 (18:28):
I wasn't listening. I was playing with the interns.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
Okay, great, because I was listening and I want it all.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
You're much more than I am.

Speaker 3 (18:35):
I am, So it's fantastic bags. His art is expensive,
so it makes sense that it'd be ripe for theft,
except for the fact that most of them are on
walls of very large and movable building.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
That's on wondering are you taking it down brick by brick?
How are you doing that?

Speaker 3 (18:50):
Not all the art is on the walls. Most of
it is. There are sculptures, oh right, and they aren't small,
but they aren't a three story building.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, it's not like having to take a wall down.

Speaker 4 (19:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
March two thousand and four, Banksy illegally installed a ten
foot tall statue in a small square near Shaftesbury Avenue
in London. And the statue is called the Drinker and
so it was modeled after rodinand's the thinker, sure, but
like a sloppier version. And he had a traffic cone
on his head. And that hearkens to a very famous

(19:23):
statue in Glasgow, which is which is the Duke of
Wellington statue there. It was put up in eighteen forty four.
It's in front of the Gallery of Modern Art, and
the good people of Glasgow make sure that he is
always wearing a traffic cone on his head.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
Really.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
Yeah, he's on a horse, Duke of Wellington horse four
feet down and like people scale up. It's a big statue. Huh,
always has a traffic cone on his head.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
Guy who beat Napoleon.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
Yeah, sometime in the eighties it started and so the
city has asked people to not keep replacing it every
time it comes down. But you can't tell them nothing.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
Does it mean anything to that it's fun.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
So twenty thirteen there was a proposal to raise the
plinth the base of the statue to make people couldn't
get out here impossible for drunkers to scale it and
put the cone on the head.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Oh, they don't heave it up. They actually get time up. Wow.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
And so the city was like, look, it cost us
one hundred pounds per call out to take it down
and we're running about ten grand a year entertainment. But
the people they rallied the plan got ditched. It's now
it's become a part of the fabric of Glasgow. So
during the twenty twelve someone took the normal safety orange

(20:34):
cone and swapped it with a gold one for the
Olympics to celebrate Scotland's contribution to the record number of
gold medals won by Team Green Britain. Oh twenty fourteen,
when the Scots were voting on independence, someone put a
yes cone on the head It's Glasgow. On Brexit Day
thirty first of January twenty twenty, pro European supporters again

(20:56):
It's Glasgow placed a cone painted to represent the EU
flag on the statue. During COVID nineteen, someone put a
blue surgical mask around the ears. Shout out to the
lockdown March of twenty twenty two in support of Ukraine
and then as a protest against Russia's invasion of it,
they put a cone with the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

(21:18):
Cool and then keeping on topic, in June of twenty
twenty three, to promote his exhibition at the Gallery of
Modern Art in Glasgow, they put Banks up there, you
know Banks. He declared that the statue was his favorite
work of art in the UK really because of the cone.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
I figure that because also the participatory in nature the
street as it's playful.

Speaker 3 (21:39):
It's playful and it is like you know changing, yeah,
and it's I've seen so many I've first of all,
I walked by it a ton of times when I
live there. But like I've seen people putting it back
up after like it blows down in a storm like
I did not, but I've seen them. And then there
are great pictures of people's scale it to put it back.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
Yeah yeah, imagine people are like cheering and stuff.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
Oh yeah yeah. So back to March two thousand and
four the Drinker Ah Yes. A few days after it
got put up, a group of masked thieves known as
art Kaida, led by a self professor give you that one,
thank you, don't give it to me, led by a
self professed quote art terrorist named Andy Link. He called
himself AK forty seven. They stole it. So the thing

(22:25):
is six feet tall, super heavy. They stole it in
broad daylight. They just loaded it onto a flatbed truck.
It's not it's not a sanctioned piece of public arts
like all's fair.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
I suppose, basically trash.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
So he said he quote kidnapped it, and then he
registered this quote find as he said with the police,
like look what I found. And so then he reaches
out to the press. He sent a ransom note to
a reporter demanding five thousand pounds in exchange for the
safe return of.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
The sculpture, that's all five thousand.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
Yeah. So this drums up a lot of coverage.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Banks.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
He speaks up banks, He's like, I hear you. I
will give you two quid towards a can of petrol
to set it on fire. Yeah, it's like whatever. So
Link he just keeps it in his garden. It's got
in his yard.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
It's like, well he disowns. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:17):
So then three years goes by, he's like, do you
want to get famous off this? Try again? Three years
goes by. Then someone broke into Link's yard while he
was away and stole.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
It from him.

Speaker 3 (23:28):
Yeah, because all's fair. Of course Link didn't think all
was fair. He went to the police to report the stuff.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
If he's stolen, good yeah, Art.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
Kaida Ak forty seven went.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
To the police.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
Yeah right. Twelve years goes by my stuff. Yeah, he's
like a cab until it's.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Funny, until it's my stolen statue.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
Twelve years goes by, world keeps turning. Twenty nineteen, the
statue reappeared. Not in someone's yard, No, it showed up
in the Southeby's auction catalog or the contemporary curative estimated
sale price of seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds to
one million pounds.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
Okay, that's why I thought it'd be like a lull
over one.

Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yeah, it was like, by far the priceiest item in
the lot. So when asked about selling stolen goods, Southeby
said it was totally satisfied that the seller had a
legal right to put Peace up for auction, and they said,
we consulted both the Metropolitan Police and the Art Loss Register,
and so Southeby's sale notes say the work was quote retrieved.

(24:33):
So this basically means that Banksy stole it back from link. Yeah,
and according to Southeby's and the seller quote, the work
was mysteriously retrieved from Art Kaida's lock up in an
anonymous heist which left AK forty seven with nothing but
the abandoned traffic cone from atop the drinker's head that's

(24:53):
in the catalog for the auction.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
That's amazing. Can you imagine that if Banksy, if it
is one person like I say, it's Robert and actually
was involved in the heights that I came in another
person and he got caught trying to steal a bank
and identity banking because he's trying to steal a banks
and he doesn't say he's not him.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
Well, how do you prove your banks right? So when
Banksy items are sold at auction, they're only seen as
authentic if they carry a certificate of authenticity from quote
Pest Control. And that's this like shadowy organization that handles
all of the inquiries for Banksy. And so Banksy and

(25:33):
or representatives declined to comment on the matter of the drinker.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
If you want to contact Bill Murray have to call
a payphone.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
Yes, exactly, so link so that according to the law,
since the statue wasn't legally installed, it was in essence
abandoned property. And he quote found it and reported that
to the police, registering it and that banks he never
filed the police reporter asked for it back. So he's
the clear owner and he had like documents and case
numbers to back.

Speaker 2 (25:59):
This all up law precedence.

Speaker 3 (26:01):
Such a nerd and so then he told the Guardian quote,
I did the right thing and reported it to the police.
I do not understand how Southeby's can sell this when
I have such proof.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
Citing Captain Henry Morgan against the State of Jamaica. I'm seventeenth.
I mean, what are we doing?

Speaker 3 (26:16):
Sutheby's didn't care really bet, But the day before the auction,
Southeby's legal team sent a letter to Link and they
were like, we totally we reassert our rejection to your claim,
and it would quote require a cogent and persuasive case
with appropriate evidence before after taking instructions from the consigner,

(26:38):
altering the planned sale process on any legal grounds related
to purported title claim by you. And so they acknowledge
quote the interesting story of Link's involvement in this piece
in two thousand and four. But they also then said
there was quote no reason why the consigner of the
work subsequently authenticated by Banksy's authentication process, does not have

(27:00):
title to sell. But then one hour before the auction
was supposed to start, it gets pulled. What Yeah. In
a statement, Sotheby's wouldn't offer details, saying only quote, the
work has been withdrawn in agreement with the consigner. So
where it is now I cannot know.

Speaker 2 (27:18):
We're just not selling, we're just selling.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
I think he did it just mess with Link. Maybe so.
Banksy's work traffics in iconography, and one image that he
uses as his sort of avatar is a rat. Yes,
the rat has been Banksy's alter ego for years and something. Yeah. Yeah.
In his book wall in Piece, he said, quote rats
exist without permission. They are hated, hunted, and persecuted. They

(27:42):
live in silent despare amid filth, and yet they're capable
of bringing entire civilizations to their knees. If you are dirty, insignificant,
and unloved, then rats are your ultimate model.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
Telling you the Bubonic plague messed up the European imagination
like the mongol or they just have not gotten over.

Speaker 3 (27:59):
The you know when when you're down trodden and your
work's worth over a million dollars.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Yeah, a rat, it is.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
In twenty eighteen, one of his rats was stolen. Really yeah.
So it was stenciled on the back of a sign
for the car park outside of the pompad Center impact.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
I was assuming it's like one of like the larger
plastic type.

Speaker 3 (28:20):
It was on a parking sign on the back of it. Yeah.
The image it was like a masked rat holding a
box cutter, like it's going to make a stencil. And
this wasn't the first time someone tried to take it.
A year earlier. The heist of it was foiled by
museum security, and so the museum they put a piece
of plexiglass around it. They put a case the center,

(28:44):
but they did that didn't stop these guys. So while
the Pampa do houses Europe's biggest collection of contemporary art,
it doesn't own that particular banks you were. Nevertheless, they
filed a complete point for destruction of property their parking sign,
you know, after all, Oh good point. So a spokesman
for the Pompadou Center send quote, we are sad to

(29:05):
inform you that Banksy's work of art facing our building
on Rue Bobard was stolen during the night. Although this
piece was not part of our collection, we were proud
that the artists had chosen the side of our building
to create it as an homage to the events of
May sixty eight. We are filing a legal complaint.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
Whoa May sixty eight, they.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
Say, So let me speak on that for a second, please.
May nineteen sixty eight, the French May Swazzlweet was a
period of incredible protests, strikes and unrest in France that
began May nineteen sixty eight, and it started with student
demonstrations in March of that year, one hundred and fifty
students as well as like some well known poets, musicians, artists,

(29:50):
they occupied an administration building at Paris University at nonterre
groups whom director Jean Luke Godard had called the children
of Marx and Cocoa co in Masculino feminol two years.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
Earlier, So way to bring in the gadara like that,
thank you.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
They were protesting discrimination in French society and the political
bureaucracy that was impacting the university's funding. Ah so you know,
cutting funding the universities, which has far reaching and devastating
effects to the culture and the economy. So this demonstration
had ended peacefully, but that's seen as like the start
of the movement. The protests that non ter didn't stop,

(30:29):
and so when the college cracked down on the students,
other university students throughout the city, including at Sorbon, they
joined the protest, and then the faculty joined in and
the demonstrations they turned violent and people were arrested. But
then the high school kids joined in and things got crazier,
and so then the young workers joined in. Oh yeah,

(30:49):
there was a riot. Eventually more than a million people
marched in Paris and the students they now had the
support of the public at large, and pretty soon workers
of all ages were protesting all over the country because
they had grievances too, you know, like the minimum wage
hadn't increased, but prices had. People were living paycheck to paycheck,
and the working class they were being sacrificed for the

(31:11):
benefit of the wealthy.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
And it's just spent a ton of their money and
their future trying to fight Algerian independence. There's a bunch
of other stuff going on over into China.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
At the time, Vietnam, and so then so there's all
this momentum. Slowly the unions start to strike and then
there's a general strike and there were more riots. People died,
but the fight continued, and so it just came to
a head, and pretty soon the government collapsed and an
election was called, and they were a hair away from
a full revolution. I remember, they know that they've been

(31:45):
through it before. And the French Revolution itself was inspired
by the American Revolution back when we said we don't
want a monarch, especially one who's going to use taxes
to keep us in line with no representation or return.
We reject dictators and kings over here things. Yeah, so
May sixty eight one of the most significant social uprisings

(32:06):
in modern European history. It had a major impact on
French politics, labor and workers, art, and like the culture
writ large and to this day that spirit of radical
thought and activism is just imbued. Yeah, we totally. Like
you know, when they the farmers come, they they dump

(32:29):
manure on the steps and they wheel out barbecuest So
you got it. You gotta make your voice heard back
to Banksy, right, mask rat with a knife it was.
It was never recovered.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
Really.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
Yeah, so here it's in this space like at the beginning,
like to mark the beginning of this this uprising. It's gone.
It is now in that liminal space where art stolen
art goes. It's probably hanging in the home of like
a billionaire who profits off the squelching of the rights
students and work, something like that. Anyway, possibly let's take

(33:03):
a break and when we return more Banksy. Yeah, Banksy, Banksy.

(33:30):
I've talked about pieces of his that were somewhat mobile, right,
but the bulk of his stuff is on the side
of a big building.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yes, this is what I'm curious about. This is what
I want to know. How do you building.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
Stop him from being stolen. There's this piece that he
did called slave Labor, and it's a stenciled image in
which a young boy is like hunched over a sewing
machine making union jack bunting. Okay yeah, And it popped
up on a wall in wood Green, North London in
May of twenty twelve, just before the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrated.

(34:02):
So it was created to protest the use of sweatshops
to make all the merch for the jubilee and the
twenty twelve Olympics. Little kids so in the butcher's apron
halfway around the world for pennies, while the Queen lives
on the dole and the wealthy can afford to buy
tickets to Olympic events.

Speaker 2 (34:20):
I feel it.

Speaker 3 (34:21):
So what business was in the building where the mural
was painted?

Speaker 2 (34:26):
What business was in the building that was in the
mural that was painted? Elizabeth, thank you?

Speaker 3 (34:30):
Pound Land?

Speaker 2 (34:32):
What oh write the store? The UK equivalent of dollar
trees always sounds so dirty, and I've been in one.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
It started out where everything in there was a pound,
Like everything in dollar tree was a dollar. Although I
think that's not quite true any And the only way
you can get a place where everything only costs a
dollar or a quid is for those items to have
been made on the super cheap, generally by people who
are not making a living wage.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yeah. Sometimes we weren't even adults, not even close.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
Yeah, And in some cases these folks are in essence
slave labor because, like you know, they have absolutely no
alternative to working for pennies a day in that.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Factory, financially compelled to.

Speaker 3 (35:12):
Yeah, they're locked and they're not like chained to a
wall or but they're in.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
They're not bought and sold, but their life might as
well be.

Speaker 4 (35:18):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (35:19):
So when that banksy appeared on the wall, the neighborhood
was stoked. According to the New York Times quote, the work,
called slave labor and depicting a downtrodden, barefoot boy making
union jacks on a sewing machine, had become a point
of pride and harringy, the site of some of the
nastiest rampages in the twenty eleven London Riots. Stenciled onto

(35:42):
the wall of the Everything Costs a pound pound land
Store on Wymark Avenue, it drew visitors from across London
and abroad. So many people ask for directions that the
local subway station erected a special this way to our
banksy sign. There really isn't any other reason people would
come to wood Greens, said even Damesa, who lives nearby,
speaking of the neighborhood that housed the work. Isn't it

(36:07):
zaren closure eyes? Oh yeah, close picture. You are a
large Bulgarian man. Your name is Dimitar. You work in
a small coffee shop slash bakery called Sini on High
Road in North London in wood Green. The sign above
the door reads in all caps Bulgarian, Albanian, Turkish, English, Spanish,

(36:31):
European bakery Europeans misspelled by the way. Another sign says
in Bulgarian and block cyrillic script, Sunny the pastry Maker.
You live just a few blocks away in the Sandlings
Estate Council housing projects. It's a large, brutalist brick square
mass of flats from afar, it almost looks like some

(36:51):
sort of factory, but it's surrounded by green space and
parks and trees, and it's right by the high street.
Great location. So each morning you ride early and you
head over to the bakery to get things started with
your coworkers. The place opens at five point thirty each morning.
People come from all over to get the spinach and
white cheese boric. Not just Eastern Europeans looking for a

(37:12):
taste of home, but anyone who tries your food, even
just once, you will love it.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Boss.

Speaker 3 (37:17):
You tell them so. On this morning, you're up before
the light. You put on your coat against the chill
of a February morning, and you head out toward Wymark Avenue,
the side street that runs from your place to high
Road where the bakery is. What's great about this commute
isn't just the short walk, but the fact that you
get to walk by a famous painting every day. Banksy
painted a kid sowing a banner of British flags last year.

(37:40):
It's low on the wall to make it look like
the kids sitting on the ground. It's clever, you think,
but it's also a very big deal, and a lot
of people come to take pictures, either of just the
piece itself or of themselves squatting next to it. The
local council put a large piece of plexiglass over it
to protect it from the elements and from people. The
best part is that it drives a lot of foot

(38:02):
traffic to the bakery. The people who've gotten to take
pictures feel good about themselves getting quote ethnic food from
the neighborhood. You know that once they try that borick though,
they'll be hooked. You walk down the sidewalk, just the
sound of a garbage struck in the distance and a
bus going by. As you approach the corner and the
bank se something seems off. You get closer and see

(38:23):
that there's rubble all over the ground. Your footfall quickens
as you jog over to the mural, but there is
no mural, just a big square in the plaster with
the underlying brick now exposed. The bank sea is gone.
You stand there and disbelieve who steals a mural off
the wall. Just then you hear a few young fellows approaching,
just coming home after a night out. That's not unusual

(38:46):
for you to feel the start of your day past
the debauched clothes of another's day. Like how do they
say ships in the night. It's like the blood coursing
back and forth through the city, you think, in this enorming,
living creature of a city. One of the boys drops
a bottle and they all laugh, and as they get
closer they stop OI. One of them yells, what'd you do?

(39:07):
You look at the guys and then back at the
hole where the mural used to be. You put your
hands up. No, no, I just got here. I didn't
do this. You tell them with great alarm in your voice,
a level of distress that surprises you as it comes
out of your mouth. You tell them that someone stole
the banksy right off the wall. The four of you
now stand agog in front of the empty space. Can't

(39:28):
have anything nice? One of the lads says, no, you
tell them we can't, so saren, Yes, someone cut the
banksy right off the wall. I think my theory is
that the plexiglass shield actually made it easier to cut
around and lift the plaster in one piece.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
I mean, you know, I used to be a fummer painter, right,
So if I was to attempt to cut plaster off,
there are ways to do it, but to get it
off of whatever it's attached to, like that, uh, the
substrate surface. I would rather cut the bricks. When you
cut the bricks, they can start to come apart. Now
you would, you would hope that it would all be pretty,
you know, connected because of the plaster and in time,

(40:06):
it's kind of like settled into itself, so it wouldn't
be so brittle where it's because it's gonna come apart
if you remove the bricks. But if you remove the bricks,
they would come it like you'd have to follow the
grout line or else just cut right through stuff. So
that's weird. And yeah, I'm with you that the plexiglass
would basically give you a front face you can kind
of lean it on as you're pulling it off the wall.
It's not going to come apart in that one. You

(40:27):
have a lot of dimensions you're working with. You think
about it a kite width with all that, so you're
taking out one of those that that helps, But I
would be a tough one. I would want like you
know the way the art preservers do it, where you
basically dremble the whole thing off the walls. So you
just cut it off and then you dremble the backside too,
so you're not really ever using chisels.

Speaker 3 (40:49):
Or anything else. Yeah, I think that's probably a very
clean cut.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
Yeah, but I mean that's and then two once again,
I mean for the backside cut and getting it off
the bricks. I mean, there are tools, there's ways to
do this, but like, how do you muffle the noise?

Speaker 3 (41:02):
I don't know, but god, I love a dremal, know
you do? Anyway? The neighborhood stunned, absolutely stunned. From the
New York Times quote, it had been ripped out with
no explanation, along with quite a substantial chunk of the wall,
said Alan Strickland, a member of the local council, describing
the bizarre scene that greeted passers by the other weekend.

(41:24):
All that was left was this hole. So not long
after the hole appeared, some construction guys showed up.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
So it sounds like they took the bricks too.

Speaker 3 (41:33):
No, you can see the bricks are there?

Speaker 2 (41:35):
Okay, Yeah, it's just if you took the bricks.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
No, they didn't that. These construction guys show up, they
start to patch the wall, and everyone's saying, well, who
hired you to do this? They won't say, They won't
discuss anything. And that's like who owns this mural? Right,
So the legal opinion is generally that banks these murals
are not his totally. They belong to whomever was the building.

(42:01):
And so this particular wall was not owned by pound Land,
but rather the company it leases the space from, wood
Green Investments, and that company they refused to comment. So
a lawyer for the company, this guy by the name
of Matthew Dillon, who did not star in Rumblefish or
There's something about Mary, he told the Financial Times quote,

(42:22):
if they deny removing the mural, they will become embroiled
in an international criminal investigation. And if they admit to
consenting to it, then they will become the target of abuse.
The advice to my client has been to say nothing interesting.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah, that's really interesting. So what about the idea that
they would remove it and secretly sell it because they
own it.

Speaker 3 (42:41):
That's so. He said that his clients didn't report any
theft to the police.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:48):
That so it was just weeks later that the mural resurfaced.
Oh weeks this time in Miami.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Oh yeah, there's a big thing there, a big event.

Speaker 3 (42:57):
Yeah. Well, Fine Art Auctions. They are prepping to sell
it at their auction. They figured it out. Yeah, no,
it showed up in an auction house. They figured it
would get between five hundred thousand, seven hundred thousand dollars.
And so Frederick Futt I don't know th hut, I'm
gonna call it fut because you know what, I'm an American.

(43:19):
He's the owner of Fine Art Auctions Miami. He said
the piece was being sold by a quote well known
collector who is not British. But he would say no
more about that, except for the fact that the painting
was being stored in Europe, was not in Miami, and
so back in wood Green Herring Herring, the neighborhood was irate,

(43:40):
so counselor Alan Strickland. He said that artwork was a
gift to the community and so he started an email
writing campaign to the auction house to get the artwork returned,
and they went bonkers, like they just would not stop
and to show the power of collective nonviolent action. At
the very last minute, the auction was dramatically halted. Good

(44:02):
for and I'm talking moments before it was due to
go under the hammer. Oh really, Yeah, we know that
the emails didn't do it though, Yeah, no, those are
Frank does be real. Those things just annoy the targets
instead of getting results.

Speaker 2 (44:17):
That's true.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
No, The rumor had it that the auction house pulled
it on advice from their lawyers. In response to that,
the auctioneers issued a statement quote, although there are no
legal issues whatsoever regarding the sale of lots six and
seven by Banksy, FAAM convinced its consigners to withdraw these
lots from the auction and take back the power of

(44:38):
authority of these works. So he mentioned lots six and seven. Yes,
there was another Banksy at that auction. The second one
was a two thousand and seven piece called Wet Dog,
and that was removed from a Bethlehem wall, and this
estimated to be worth up to eight hundred thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
Not Pennsylvania, Bethlehem, the holy bethl.

Speaker 3 (44:58):
Like birthplace of Jesus Noah. That one was pulled just
a few hours before slave labor was. And he said
that the two pieces were brought to auction by separate
owners and neither of them were British. So he also
said that he would maintain the privacy of the collector
who put them up for sale. Quote, we respect our

(45:20):
clients and their confidentiality. It is not our decision to
have the banks You returned. We only sell it, We
do not have control of it.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
I love how like auction houses act like they have
like attorney client privilege. Clients like we have to understand
and you're just trying to profit. Don't act like, oh
on an ethical high horse here.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
Well, in the meantime, new work had popped up where
slave labor had been. Someone likely Banksy, it was posited,
had stenciled a little rat next to the hole holding
a sign saying why, and then that was quickly plexiglass over,

(45:59):
and then another sencil reading danger thieves showed up, and
then over the new blank plaster where the whole was
someone did like a small, hot, pink dinosaur. Those two
were not in the style of banks There was a
woman in a nun's habit with no mouth and a
red star over one eye that covered up the dinosaur stuff. Yeah,

(46:22):
very much so. Various murals have taken over throughout the years.
Right now, it's a sewing machine on top of a
plinth of a statue that had been taken down to protest.
That one got people all excited, but Artnet burst everyone's
bubble in twenty twenty two with the headline Womp womp.
Turns out this mural Lenderner's thought was a Banksy is
actually just a tribute by a local fan artist. What

(46:48):
it looks like. This is the current Google street View.
You know a bunch of stuff around there, and you
know you've got it's palm oil or me. You choose
and there's a picture of it or whatever.

Speaker 4 (47:05):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
Uh. His bubbles back to Slave Labor.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
Do you say your team chocolate? That's all I'm hearing.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
Okay, So just a few months after that Miami auction
was canceled, it popped up again, Slave Labor.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
I thought the action did, this.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
Time for sale at an auction by the Sincura group
in Covent Garden in London. Cura, Sincura, Sincura. Who cares.
They said that I'm getting faster and looser.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
Yes I know.

Speaker 3 (47:40):
They said that mural had quote been sensitively restored under
a cloak of secrecy, and we go up for sale
along pieces by Damien Hurst, Andy Warhol, Mario Testino.

Speaker 2 (47:51):
That's how I get my haircut under a cloak of.

Speaker 3 (47:53):
Secrecy by by Mario Tastino. So once again cut his
hair once again. Neighborhood groups lost their slippers like they
just Keith Flett, secretary of the local Trades Union Congress,
he told the Guardian newspaper quote, the slave labor banksy
belongs to the people of Herringy, not a wealthy private client.

(48:17):
We want the sale stopped and the banksy back where
it belongs in London and twenty two.

Speaker 2 (48:22):
I know think that sounds crazy, but you keep saying
the term slave labor, and as like a black man
hearing slave labor, slave labor, and it's all these people
talking about profiting off this stuff. It just it just
hits the ear difference.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
Well, and when you're typing it out like I was,
where I'm making a note to myself. So then slave
labor popped up again.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Like it's it's it's a little casual.

Speaker 3 (48:42):
Yeah, that's a little strange. Oh yeah, so Sinkhira. They
said that they in a statement quote, we are approached
by building owners to remove the artwork illegally painted on
their sites. And they said apparently they salvage and uncover
murals from across London, Liverpool and Berlin. They say that

(49:03):
they don't own the pieces and they don't make any money,
but they're just like fixers who were hired to reclaim them.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
In the hood. They have these places that we'll buy
your house and they'll still signs all the place. Yeah,
it feels like this, but like we'll take that.

Speaker 3 (49:16):
We'll take that.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
Take your art, well, this is what they sell it somewhere.
We'll put the profits with you.

Speaker 3 (49:21):
They said. Quote The building owners have not asked for
the art to be placed on their premises or for
the ongoing attention received from it. What is more, they
run the very real risk of having a Grade two
listing apply to their premises, which seriously affects their business
operations and resale value. Though loved by the public, these
are often a hindrance to the building owners. And then,

(49:44):
according to the Guardian quote, the company said they then
work to restore the iconic graffiti works which had often
been the subject of vandalism or theft, and would, they
claim otherwise be doomed to a fate of unceremonious decay
and erosions.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
It's kind of a point of graffiti. Yeah, why it's
not on a canvas.

Speaker 3 (50:02):
The auction actually went through. Meant to be for the people,
and to be for the people, and.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
In those places transitory permanent. Part of like you.

Speaker 3 (50:10):
Change, here's a fun sentence for you. Slave labor sold
it into an unidentified.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
Buyer you hear it now, right?

Speaker 3 (50:18):
Hear it? Oh, I've been I've been hearing. Slave Labor
sold to an unidentified buyer seven hundred and fifty pounds.
It was like one point one million at the time.
But it's not over Zeron, No, but not. Fast forward
to twenty eight.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Flave Labory sticks around Elizabeth.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
Slave Labor was sold again, this time keep coming back,
this time at Julian's Auctions in Los Angeles. Anyway, American
artist Ron English bought it for seven hundred and thirty
thousand dollars, so we had some depreciation.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
Yeah, sound.

Speaker 3 (50:52):
He said he had plans for it. He vowed to
whitewash it in protest of the market in street art.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
He's going to paint over the banks.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
Yeah, he told the press. Quote, this is a blow
for street art. It shouldn't be bought and sold.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Was he going to film himself doing this and then sell.

Speaker 3 (51:08):
That, Well, he himself is a street art into some
kind of like thousands hanging around, plus you get the fees.
I don't know he's reaching up on nine hundred thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
I've mentioned her a few times on the show, but
the artist Pipolodi Wrist she took a sledgehammer and destroyed
a car one time. It was like a whole performance
art piece. It sounds like this guy should do that
kind of stuff. I bet he doesn't have the eggs
over to do that.

Speaker 3 (51:32):
He listened because that was one of the things. There
were so many stolen Banksies that like, I could do
two more episodes, but then it's you know, I bet,
I bet it's just too much.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
Some of the stories.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
I may not is the balloon girl. That's what I
was thinking of through the shredder as part of like
the process statement. And so I think that this guy's
kind of you know, riding that high anyway. He so,
this guy, he's had any of tangles with the law
for using public billboards that sort of stuff, public spaces

(52:04):
for his paintings, sculptures. He said, quote, I'm going to
paint over it and just include it on one of
the walls in my house. We're tired of people stealing
our stuff off the streets and reselling it. So I'm
just going to buy everything and get my hands on
and whitewash it.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
But then the Wii and there was done a lot
of work, I mean, like putting himself and Banksy into
one collective like that.

Speaker 3 (52:25):
He says it my buddy Banksy, but you're like my buddy.

Speaker 2 (52:29):
He sounds like a mister brainwashed where it's like my
buddy Banksy, the guy from the exited the gift shops exactly.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
Then he said that he does plan to sell it,
maybe for like a million dollars.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
Look at that.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
And then he said, quote, I'm crazy, but I'm not stupid.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
Sir, You're a lot of things.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
Yeah, so there's no word on how that's going. And
what does Banksy think of all this?

Speaker 2 (52:52):
What does banks you think?

Speaker 3 (52:53):
A great questions?

Speaker 2 (52:55):
Eric, Thank you.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
He released the statement, quoting ay Matisse quote I was
very embarrassed when my canvases began to fetch high prices.
I saw myself condemned to a future of painting nothing
but masterpieces.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
Interesting.

Speaker 3 (53:09):
So he's Banksy has said in the past that quote.
For the sake of keeping all street art where it belongs,
I'd encourage people not to buy anything by anybody unless
it was created for sale in the first place.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
There you go, there it is boom.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
That's great advice for everything. Yeah, Zaren, what's your ridiculous takeaway?

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Okay, this will probably blow your mind. But maybe this
is the time to tell you, or just to tell
everybody at the same time. I'm Banksy. What I know
you didn't see that coming?

Speaker 3 (53:38):
So did not I did not have that on my
list of theories.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
Oh, I'm sorry, I read my note wrong. I'm Batman.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
Oh that makes even more sense.

Speaker 2 (53:47):
No, sorry, I still read that wrong. Sorry, I'm Bartman.
Oh that's that's lined through. I don't know what my
notes are.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
Yours every woman?

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Yes, I'm a multitude. It starts with me. What about you?
What's your ridiculous takeaway?

Speaker 3 (54:01):
Ridiculous takeaway is that you know that like you pointed
out that this, oh, my good friend Banksy like this,
everyone in one way or another wants to hitch a
ride on this stuff. You know, whether it's like, you know,
bringing people to the neighborhood. And now it's only one
passing reference in all of the press. Did I read
did people point out that this is on the side

(54:24):
of a of a dollar store basically.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
And where there was unrest in twenty eleven it protest
but like.

Speaker 3 (54:31):
Here's we're talking about slave labor like the inside and
buy some like but the neighborhood, they just thought of
it as like this is a huge thing, which it is.
And like some of the pictures when you when you
search slave labor Banksy, you see like that, you know
people sitting on the ground next to it, smiling, and
it's like, you know, a lot in much of this

(54:53):
the point is missed.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
I hope he gets a laugh at a lot.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
I hope so too. You know what I need though,
in addition to many laughs, I need to talk back David,
Oh my god, I want cheat.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
Hey, guys in fat can kind of smile on my
face when everything seems to be going wrong have for you? Well,
you know, we got your back because we feel you.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
We got to keep a smile on our faces.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
I've had learned that a long time ago, that humor
is one way to defeat anger, evil, small mindedness, hate.

Speaker 3 (55:42):
And here's the thing, though important. We can't beat ourselves
up when we feel overwhelmed and in any time during
our lives, now, before, in the future, whatever it is. Like,
if if it's a lot for you, know that it's okay.
It's a lot for you, it's a lot for all
of us, So don't feel bad about it. But yeah,

(56:03):
you got to keep a smile on your face with
the close proximity thereof.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
Totally we're also we're here, you know, to be both
a distraction, some entertainment and also a community and also
to let you know we are right there with you
with that. Don't let the bastards get you done.

Speaker 3 (56:17):
That's the truth and that's it. That's that's a good
sign off for today. You can find us online at
ridiculous Crime dot com award winning website. Did you know
that every three hours we win a Webby award.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
WHOA.

Speaker 3 (56:29):
Yeah, it's a new record, it's a new thing they
created just for us.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
I hope they've got a good tally machine they do.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
There's a guy with a clicker on him. Yeah. We're
also a Ridiculous Crime on Blue Sky and Instagram and
you can email us at ridiculous Crime at gmail dot
com and then leave us talk back on the iheartapp
reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and

(56:57):
Zara Burnette, produced and edited by the Real Banksy True
Identity Finally Revealed Dave Cousten, starring Amalie Rutger as Judith.
Research is by balloon Girl Marissa Brown. The theme song
is by parachuting rat Thomas Lee and flower thrower Travis Dunn.
Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair

(57:18):
and makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are
Flying Copper, Ben Bollen and Gorilla in a pink mass
of Noel Brown. Dis Crime Say It One More Times.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts
my heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows