For some time now, anything with the word BANKSY next to it has been worth a shitload of money. For years, auction houses have regularly been selling original canvases by the prolific stencil artist for tens of thousands of dollars.

Yesterday a mural that the artist completed with fellow graffiti writer Inkie in the late ’90s set a new precedent for extravagantly high street art sale prices, selling for over 445,000£ ($885,000 AUD) in an auction in Paris. The mural titled ‘Silent Majority’ was painted on the side of a festival workers trailer during the 1998 Glastonbury Festival and depicts “a commando raid to install sound gear for a rave”. Unlike the majority of Banksy’s pieces, which are predominantly stencils, ‘Silent Majority’ is a mostly freehand piece with little use of stencils – a factor attributing to the crazy price it was able to fetch on auction.

While not everyone is taken by the mysterious stencil artist’s work, the owner of the trailer preferring to be known only as “Nathan” sure is stoked – the sale is going to finance the building of a new home.

[Via.]

Luke Karakas

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