DALLAS, TX.- In the 1980s and early '90s one of the most common discussions in the art world was whether or not street art, a.k.a. graffiti (a.k.a. urban art), belonged in institutions, galleries and private collections. The question focused on relocation: Would transferring a would-be temporary work from the "wild" to a clean well-lighted place have a neutralizing or even castrating effect on the work (if not the artist's intentions)? Could urban art maintain its original impact or credibility if it's displayed, bought and sold alongside more conventional studio-made artworks? Then came Banksy, whose explosive success changed the course of the urban art market.
Which is not to overlook the importance of Keith Haring or Kenny Scharf or DAZE (or later, Shepard Fairey) to this discussion, let alone the most famous artist who ever made the crossover feel completely organic and inevitable: Jean-Michel Basquiat. These earlier discussions took place because these complicated artists defied labels and took advantage of a system that was more than ready to reward them. Street art was showing up on gallery walls whether we were ready for it or not.
But Banksy's arrival on the scene in the 1990s seemed to sunset the discussion altogether, because the pseudonymous UK-based artist's work made him a household name — truly familiar to a vast percentage of the population — in a way that no other street artist could claim. His pithy political and social-commentary images, painted on streets, walls, bridges, and signage the world over, were understood as symbols of an entire age, an entire cultural epoch. Banksy's dark and often humorous (and sometime heartbreaking) work belonged to everyone, and it also served as an event: Every new Bansky production made headlines wherever it popped up. There was no way this artist's name wouldn't end up in collections; he symbolized too much for him to escape the system. Spotting a new Banksy piece in the wild was akin to spotting an unattended gold bar. A whole section of wall holding up a shop, adorned by a fresh Banksy stencil, could be put into play market-wise. No number of art historians or art-world cynics could stop the deluge of global interest in Banksy's work.
Like other street artists, Banksy makes editioned works for the commercial market; that's been a natural profit-generating move for so many of those we consider "Urban artists." But Banksy's one-of-a-kind works are still by far the artist's most significant and covetable (a limited number are sold officially and privately through a Banksy-created agency named Pest Control). And on March 30, in its Urban Art Signature® Auction, Heritage will offer two artworks by Banksy that are wholly unique… the ultra-rare grails of Bansky collectors. Warning Sign from 2006 and Single Lane Ahead from 2011, both signed by the artist, epitomize Banksy's graphic prowess and visual economy — his way of making urgent and complex visual statements in a few ingenious moves. "This is a high-value sale," says Walter Ramirez, Heritage's New York Director of Urban & Contemporary Art, with a nod to Banksy's unique artworks. "It's the biggest Urban Art event at Heritage so far."
Single Lane Ahead is spray enamel on a found street sign; the "pixilated" hourglass bleeding out a single heart sums up an inevitable future of atomized people making their way through life with few real-world connections. You can interpret it as being about the loss of romantic love, or an advancing fate of every person fending for themselves from behind the anonymous screens that define our digital age. Banksy has a well-earned reputation for his prescience; most people in 2011 were still just getting around to the novelty of social media, while he sensed a collapse of community and an epidemic of loneliness. The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles featured this significant piece at the seminal 2011 Art in the Streets exhibition curated by Jeffrey Deitch; it was the first major U.S museum survey of graffiti and street art.
Warning Sign dates back to 2006 and is a particularly limber and dark half-jest about the messiness of geopolitics and our willful disregard of worst-case scenarios: On this street sign marked with graphic flat black parallel lines, an added jetliner in silhouette flies toward them, which instantly transforms the simple lines into the World Trade Center Twin Towers. It is a remarkably elegant work. It was widely exhibited in Steve Lazarides' The Art of Banksy touring exhibition in 2016-17.
Banksy's work opened a floodgate of global interest in the urban art category. Heritage's March 30 event is marked by Banksy, but as an urban art auction it's also impressively packed with veterans and newcomers. KAWS makes an appearance in this auction, as does Shepard Fairey, RETNA, and a surprising and charismatic three-dimensional life-size shark by RISK. Face Your Fears — Shark (2017), constructed of hundreds of pieces of interconnected recycled metal, "floats" inside an armature. Burning Man calls. Another familiar-name highlight of the auction is an acrylic-on-canvas work titled 2 Luv (2020) by LY. The Tokyo-born artist tends to depict, via understated abstractions, scenes she takes in while traveling — and this tonal scene is no exception with two masked figures moving in unison past city storefronts. Artist Fnnch makes an appearance in this auction with Greatest Hitsy, a 2019 spray paint-on-canvas triptych. Three quartets of the San Francisco artist's trademark honey bears try on a range of identities through the changing of their hats. See if you can spot the friendly Ursidae version of David Bowie's Ziggy and Darryl "DMC" McDaniels of Run D.M.C.
Canadian artist Sandra Chevrier is a notable addition to the event. One of her hyper-realistic comic book collages titled La Cage et la vie des étoiles, from 2022, is from her celebrated Cage series. Her female figures are imprisoned by society's suffocating cages of expectation, and it's all in the eyes. Her collab with Martin Whatson is here too: the Marilyn-faced La Cage A La Toute Derniere Seconde from 2016 is an apropos screenprint with hand embellishments on paper. Another notable collaboration in this event is an untitled work by two Brooklyn-based artists, Royal Jarmon X Robert Nava: The oil stick-and-marker-on-paper work depicts a cartoon astronaut (or sea-diving) grinning cat piloting a fish-like vessel.
Another highlight of this auction is a collection of works by emerging Nigerian-born painters. Matthew Eguavoen Imuetiyan, Odinakachi Okoroafor and Victor Ubah each reconsider the figure and intimate portraiture via their highly individual post-modern twists on Western and non-Western painting traditions. This new guard of painters continue along a now-established path toward the collectors who love ultra-contemporary art. "This is one of our most extraordinary auctions to date, and this auction features the most important artists in the contemporary and urban art landscape," says Taylor Curry, Heritage's Consignment Director for Modern & Contemporary Art, New York. "We're excited to bring these never-before-seen works to market."
