The world it seems is bought and sold on fame. Give anyone the option between two paintings for the same price and they are bound to chose the one with the famous name attached, even despite quality. I’m sure I would do the same so I’m really no better.
$220,000 for a stencil piece, even if you like the message of the painting, seems a bit ridiculous. It could just be mistaken for one of dozens of similar photoshopped images I’ll see online today. All Banksy really has to do is browse around online where you can find millions of concepts just waiting to be taken from an idea created by a kid learning photoshop. The guy might be witty and intelligent but chances are he is just taking ideas from the hundreds of millions of ideas available to take from.
You might think that a famous artist did great things, and that is why he / she is famous. While this would appear to be true chances are he was just lucky, in the right place at the right time, or has friends in high places. Many of the famous artists of old are well known because they had rich friends and patrons.
Take a day and go look around in galleries and art shows, you will see that their are no new ideas, everything has been done. In order to get famous it appears you need to get some media attention, either through shocking people, knowing the right people, or being dead and crazy. I guess being a really skilled artist can work out for you as well, but that is going about things the hard way.
