When I Stencil My Masterpiece: Banksy Thefts

Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio zero.

Elizabeth. How you doing, I've done pretty well. I'm missing you.

Yeah, I know, it's been like twenty minutes.

I know. I was like, hey, I went outside, I forgot who you are. I walked back in, Elizabeth.

It happens all the time, Yeah, all the time. Do you know what's ridiculous?

Yes? I do, Elizabeth, Oh do sure? Yeah. Do you ever heard of a little drink called gator load gator load? Yeah?

You know, I know, gator raid.

Oh yeah, you're familiar. Gator raid also used to make a thing called gator load.

Oh yeah, it's this, okay.

Gator load two to eighty.

So.

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

Enough to be dangerous.

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

It's like a thing of insured.

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

Load that both teams are just the bulls.

One trainer said, just the bulls. The trainer said it was like eating baked potatoes.

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.

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?

Why close?

Yeah, but they came back to win the series Go Bulls.

Yeah it is. You know what else is ridiculous? Elizabeth mass Appeal counterculture.

I like that.

Huh.

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.

You damn right right right?

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 like those who just scribble on things.

Yeah. Now he throws pieces up and does like real art.

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.

For him this is great, so welcome.

He primarily uses stencil.

Base in the sense that's why I think of the Italians as the stencil Yeah.

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.

And also it also conforms with the hyper consumer and the mass production aspects of our culture.

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 a lot of visual and thematic similarities. But Banksy also does installations mixed media. I'm going to put this into

Yeah, like making light of domination or subjugation.

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 two thousand and four, Banksy released Banksy's Die Faced to like to face but a fake ten pound note featuring

Imagery lift up the Wall.

Yeah.

Yes.

Two thousand and six created Barely Legal, which was an LA art show that had a live spray painted elephant.

Oh.

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.

I bet he did not attend.

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.

I remember that.

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.

Would say that it's become like so much so that it's canon. It's like museum.

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 sell for millions of dollars at auction.

I thought you were down for ad Busters, man.

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 highly derivative about you know, the Italians and Bla Clarat. So are you a fan?

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.

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.

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.

They're not particularly challenging the Banksy pieces.

And the critique is a little bit uh wan at this point.

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.

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.

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.

There's a gift for everything post social media.

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.

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.

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.

Raw covers fans for your room.

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 art scene. In two thousand and eight, The Mail on Sunday conducted an investigation linking Banksy to Gunningham. Based on

Sure.

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. And then after like the rise to fame, Gunningham like pretty much disappeared from public records and like, so there's

This is the one I've heard.

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 scene eighties. Yeah, even Banksy himself has credited del Naya

Huh. So.

Another theory is.

The other theories actually got more.

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.

Yeah, I would say that one matches like wonder wat it just sounds fun. Yeah, I think Robert from Massive Attacks much more.

The theory of what I really believe is the case, oh, is that Banksy isn't one person but rather a collective Ah.

Of course that makes the most sense.

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.

World, okay, and also the travel.

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 group of artists working under the Banksy name that makes it feasible.

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.

Yeah, or technically double O seven or yeah exactly.

Yeah.

I think it's like they got together and thought, let's call it Banksy.

I like that. That's actually interesting. And a bank of artists.

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.

This is the most fascinating.

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.

Time, so he couldn't be Yeah, there's this.

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 like as a woman.

A woman won awards for it, and they're like, what do we do?

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.

I'm kind of embarrassed as sex assigned. I didn't never consider that.

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 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

It's a lot like JFK conspiracy, for like comparing a photo and an outline of a head.

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 when looked at through any logical lens like ouch wow. So no matter who they really are.

About coming in hot, I mean hot, hot.

Hot, well Peter Tosh for you, So it doesn't matter who Banksy really is. Banksy's making serious coin on the art real.

Yeah.

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.

Yeah.

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 you hear about anything cool that you wanted to buy and or know about in those ads?

I wasn't listening. I was playing with the interns.

Okay, great, because I was listening and I want it all.

You're much more than I am.

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.

That's on wondering are you taking it down brick by brick? How are you doing that?

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.

Yeah, it's not like having to take a wall down.

Yeah.

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 statue in Glasgow, which is which is the Duke of Wellington statue there. It was put up in eighteen forty four.

Really.

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.

Guy who beat Napoleon.

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.

Does it mean anything to that it's fun.

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.

Oh, they don't heave it up. They actually get time up. Wow.

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 cone and swapped it with a gold one for the Olympics to celebrate Scotland's contribution to the record number of

I figure that because also the participatory in nature the street as it's playful.

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.

Yeah yeah, imagine people are like cheering and stuff.

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 is six feet tall, super heavy. They stole it in broad daylight. They just loaded it onto a flatbed truck.

I suppose, basically trash.

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.

The sculpture, that's all five thousand.

Yeah. So this drums up a lot of coverage.

Banks.

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.

It's like, well he disowns. Yeah.

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.

It from him.

Yeah, because all's fair. Of course Link didn't think all was fair. He went to the police to report the stuff.

If he's stolen, good yeah, Art.

Kaida Ak forty seven went.

To the police.

Yeah right. Twelve years goes by my stuff. Yeah, he's like a cab until it's.

Funny, until it's my stolen statue.

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.

Okay, that's why I thought it'd be like a lull over one.

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.

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.

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 or representatives declined to comment on the matter of the drinker.

If you want to contact Bill Murray have to call a payphone.

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.

This all up law precedence.

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.

Citing Captain Henry Morgan against the State of Jamaica. I'm seventeenth. I mean, what are we doing?

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, 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

We're just not selling, we're just selling.

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 live in silent despare amid filth, and yet they're capable

Telling you the Bubonic plague messed up the European imagination like the mongol or they just have not gotten over.

The you know when when you're down trodden and your work's worth over a million dollars.

Yeah, a rat, it is.

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.

I was assuming it's like one of like the larger plastic type.

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, but they did that didn't stop these guys. So while the Pampa do houses Europe's biggest collection of contemporary art,

Whoa May sixty eight, they.

Say, So let me speak on that for a second, please.

Earlier, So way to bring in the gadara like that, thank you.

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

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.

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

Really.

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 a break and when we return more Banksy. Yeah, Banksy, Banksy.

Yes, this is what I'm curious about. This is what I want to know. How do you building.

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. So it was created to protest the use of sweatshops to make all the merch for the jubilee and the

I feel it.

So what business was in the building where the mural was painted?

What business was in the building that was in the mural that was painted? Elizabeth, thank you?

Pound Land?

What oh write the store? The UK equivalent of dollar trees always sounds so dirty, and I've been in one.

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.

Yeah. Sometimes we weren't even adults, not even close.

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.

Factory, financially compelled to.

Yeah, they're locked and they're not like chained to a wall or but they're in.

They're not bought and sold, but their life might as well be.

Yes.

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 the wall of the Everything Costs a pound pound land Store on Wymark Avenue, it drew visitors from across London

Boss.

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. It's low on the wall to make it look like

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

Or anything else. Yeah, I think that's probably a very clean cut.

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?

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. All that was left was this hole. So not long after the hole appeared, some construction guys showed up.

So it sounds like they took the bricks too.

No, you can see the bricks are there?

Okay, Yeah, it's just if you took the bricks.

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. And so this particular wall was not owned by pound Land, but rather the company it leases the space from, wood

Yeah, that's really interesting. So what about the idea that they would remove it and secretly sell it because they own it.

That's so. He said that his clients didn't report any theft to the police.

Yeah.

That so it was just weeks later that the mural resurfaced. Oh weeks this time in Miami.

Oh yeah, there's a big thing there, a big event.

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. He's the owner of Fine Art Auctions Miami. He said the piece was being sold by a quote well known

That's true.

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 authority of these works. So he mentioned lots six and seven. Yes,

Not Pennsylvania, Bethlehem, the holy bethl.

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 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.

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.

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, 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

I don't know.

Uh. His bubbles back to Slave Labor.

Do you say your team chocolate? That's all I'm hearing.

Okay, So just a few months after that Miami auction was canceled, it popped up again, Slave Labor.

I thought the action did, this.

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.

Yes I know.

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.

That's how I get my haircut under a cloak of.

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. We want the sale stopped and the banksy back where it belongs in London and twenty two.

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.

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.

Like it's it's it's a little casual.

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 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.

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.

We'll take that.

Take your art, well, this is what they sell it somewhere. We'll put the profits with you.

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

It's kind of a point of graffiti. Yeah, why it's not on a canvas.

The auction actually went through. Meant to be for the people, and to be for the people, and.

In those places transitory permanent. Part of like you.

Change, here's a fun sentence for you. Slave labor sold it into an unidentified.

Buyer you hear it now, right?

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.

Flave Labory sticks around Elizabeth.

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.

Yeah, sound.

He said he had plans for it. He vowed to whitewash it in protest of the market in street art.

He's going to paint over the banks.

Yeah, he told the press. Quote, this is a blow for street art. It shouldn't be bought and sold.

Was he going to film himself doing this and then sell.

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.

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.

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.

Some of the stories.

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 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

But then the Wii and there was done a lot of work, I mean, like putting himself and Banksy into one collective like that.

He says it my buddy Banksy, but you're like my buddy.

He sounds like a mister brainwashed where it's like my buddy Banksy, the guy from the exited the gift shops exactly.

Then he said that he does plan to sell it, maybe for like a million dollars.

Look at that.

And then he said, quote, I'm crazy, but I'm not stupid.

Sir, You're a lot of things.

Yeah, so there's no word on how that's going. And what does Banksy think of all this?

What does banks you think?

A great questions?

Eric, Thank you.

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.

Interesting.

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.

There you go, there it is boom.

That's great advice for everything. Yeah, Zaren, what's your ridiculous takeaway?

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?

So did not I did not have that on my list of theories.

Oh, I'm sorry, I read my note wrong. I'm Batman.

Oh that makes even more sense.

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.

Yours every woman?

Yes, I'm a multitude. It starts with me. What about you? What's your ridiculous takeaway?

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 of a of a dollar store basically.

And where there was unrest in twenty eleven it protest but like.

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 the point is missed.

I hope he gets a laugh at a lot.

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.

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.

We got to keep a smile on our faces.

I've had learned that a long time ago, that humor is one way to defeat anger, evil, small mindedness, hate.

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, you got to keep a smile on your face with the close proximity thereof.

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.

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.

WHOA.

Yeah, it's a new record, it's a new thing they created just for us.

I hope they've got a good tally machine they do.

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 Zara Burnette, produced and edited by the Real Banksy True Identity Finally Revealed Dave Cousten, starring Amalie Rutger as Judith.

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