It smells like a scam. Or the hoax. Or snub. Or the joke. Or all at once, without apparent respect for copyright and pocketing big bucks in the process.
The very poor exhibition Banksyland concludes his presentation on Saturday in Montreal. The Quebec stop is part of a tour of several North American cities (Chicago, Toronto, Vancouver, Orlando, etc.) led by Lumio Studio from Portland, specializing in immersive exhibitions (including one on Jesus), and One Thousand Ways, organizer of artistic tours.
The basic problem, but really a very deep one, comes from the presentation of a paid exhibition, apparently unauthorized by the artist, who has always refused the use for commercial purposes of his committed work. In fact, it was impossible to verify anything with the organizers. Media relations did not respond to requests for an interview.
“It’s a little curious to see an exhibition where everything is upside down, ultimately: we have the marketing of an anti-commercial work by an artist who has not authorized it and who does not receive royalties,” says Me François Le Moine, specialist in copyright law. He accompanied The duty for the visit Wednesday afternoon. The comments of the doctoral student in law, lecturer at UdeM, were delivered immediately after the visit to the terrace of a nearby café.
“Obviously, Banksy, who produces street works, earns income elsewhere, from somewhere,” says Mr. Le Moine. But very few artists make a good living from their art. We must also think about this enormous group which needs legal protection and collective agreements to ensure a minimum income in the event of exposure. »
The Quebec context makes this Banksy presentation even more astonishing. Local artists recently obtained the right to negotiate with private or public distributors (such as museums) the exploitation of their works. Ongoing negotiations should make it possible to monetize the copyright and exhibition rights with a guaranteed minimum. The exhibition or reproduction of a painting or photo should, for example, ensure a stamp, which is not automatically the case today, except at the National Gallery of Canada.
“A public presentation, yes, it is recognition of talent, but we do not only live from the appreciation of others,” says M.e The monk. There, in addition, we find ourselves in a commercial exhibition that is quite disappointing when we compare it to the efforts of museums which document their collections, offer a serious critical apparatus, and hold a catalog. Never, when I go to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, do I have the impression of being cheated for the price. There, we leave the exhibition wondering if we saw everything and what we saw, since we cannot tell the difference between an original and a reproduction. »
3D Wiki
Tickets sell for $36 plus tax of $5.89. VIP passes for $79.33 provide the bonus of a poster and unlimited access to poorly lit rooms for one day.
The overpriced ticket allows you to see some works spread over two floors of a dilapidated building on Boulevard Saint-Laurent, a display more like “garochage” surrounded by long bilingual explanatory texts. Some high school student presentations do better. The educational panels appear to have been written by ChatGPT. The whole thing gives the impression of walking in a 3D version of the Wikipedia page dedicated to the artist.
Quite frankly and in all honesty, the basic $40 or so required would be much better invested elsewhere. Reproducing a Banksian stencil costs less than $30 on Amazon. The books about his artistic activism each sell just a little more.
The fact that it is impossible, especially with mediocre cartels, to distinguish the origin of the works, to decide between the supposed originals (“ salvaged original streetworks », promises the site banksyland.com) probable reproductions (“ handmade studio editions “) effectively completes the painting of gray on gray in this similiartistic story.
We are therefore swimming in vagueness and vagueness, which adds questions without answers. The most destabilizing one makes one wonder if the artist Banksy, who works outside and even voluntarily against the art system (museums, galleries, collectors, auctioneers, etc.), let this bad deal happen in order to add a sort of criticism through the absurd. We would therefore arrive at this ultimate proposition where an artist contesting institutions and the art market would allow an exhibition of reproductions of his anti-authoritarian works to circulate to demonstrate the aberration of this same system pushed to the limits of its commercial stupidity. Phew!
“Maybe it’s part of the Banksy myth and that contributes to what he does, so fortunately artists have other ways of doing things, legally legal, to obtain income,” continues Me The monk. He adds that it would be strictly impossible to mount a similar exhibition with reproductions mixed with possible originals around the corpus of a Quebec artist, for example Valérie Blass or Pierre Dorion.
“Reproduction is an exclusive right of the copyright holder,” says the specialist. We can organize an immersive show with works by Van Gogh because his works are in the public domain. The exhibition is also protected by a right. »
A commercial gallery does not pay royalties to the artist because it exhibits his work with the aim of selling it. Until recently, a museum had to negotiate exhibition rights and will soon have to negotiate minimums with artists’ associations. “If the artist Banksy absolutely wanted to prevent the exhibition, he would be able to do so,” notes the lawyer. He may refuse the hanging of a reproduction or an original without authorization. »
In short, everything gets confused and the mystery of this exhibition, which fortunately is coming to an end, remains quite opaque. “This exhibition is more the exception than the rule,” says François Le Moine. It was authorized or not. It goes with the character who rejects the system. It is his right to accept these conditions, but this solution cannot be satisfactory for most artists. At least, this situation will have served to provoke discussions on established standards, on copyright. It’s not necessarily useless…”