Banksy Does New York Page #7

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There's what appears

to be a Nazi soldier

sitting on a bench in this banksy

titled "the banality

of the banality of evil."

You could see people here

gathered, taking pictures.

They cannot believe that they

are actually seeing a banksy

here on 23rd street.

He takes a benign, picturesque version

of humanity in nature.

And he basically put

a Hitler mustache on this guy.

He just totally twisted it,

and so it becomes so far from any form

of political correctness.

And then he twists it again by doing

about the most politically

correct thing you can do

as a successful artist.

But he puts this up

in auction for the homeless.

My name's David raper.

I'm the head of businesses

at housing works thrift shops.

Banksy, the u. K. Artist,

unannounced, dropped an original

work into one of our stores.

The sorts of things we do is,

we build housing

for HIV-positive people in the city.

We provide healthcare services,

drug treatment and drug counseling.

Our job, to be honest,

with this piece of work,

is to create a bit of fun

for our customers

and to turn it into money

that we can do good with.

It's up for auction

for the next 24 hours.

It was come and left

in the store very quietly,

and then a little while later,

we got a tip-off from his people

that there was an original work

in the store,

and that's how we found out

about it yesterday afternoon.

The original work was actually

bought here

about two weeks ago for $50.

The little bit of extra work

that he's put in

has turned into something

that's gonna be over $250,000.

He called it "the banality

of the banality of evil."

"The banality of evil" is the subtitle

of Hannah arendt's book...

The trial of Adolf eichmann.

He was accused of deporting

the Jews to the death camps.

Yet Hannah arendt insisted

he was not a monster.

He was perfectly ordinary.

And arendt's conclusion was

that evil is not perpetrated

by the people at the top.

Evil is perpetrated

by the people like eichmann

who are just doing their jobs.

It's a failure to think.

That's what Hannah arendt called it...

A failure to think.

And banksy, I think, is trying

to expose this failure to think.

Biddingforgood.com

is where you can place your bid

if you have that kind of money.

It's up to $211,000.

The bidding has gotten huge.

Banksy work up for auction

at more than $300,000.

...he donated

was auctioned off last night

for $615,000.

It's my party,

and I'll cry if I want to

cry if I want to,

c-c-cry if I want to

you would cry, too,

if it happened to you

you would cry, yeah, yeah

don't know why he is not here

and I called him more than twice

but he won't pick up

where the guys?

I had a couple of friends come

not the ones I really like

what the...

It's my party,

and I'll cry if I want to

cry if I want to,

c-c-cry if I want to

you would cry, too,

if it happened to you

you would cry, too,

if it happened to you

Banksy dropped this off in queens,

behind, essentially, a mechanics shop.

And these guys get...

They're the owners,

totally regular guys...

If it happened to you

you would cry, yeah, yeah

And they actually loaded it

into their truck,

drove away with it, put it

into their grandmother's garage.

She got body, she got body

- I'm-a get her

- hey, how are you?

- Good.

- nice to see you.

Me, too.

How is things here?

Good. a lot of people.

I think this is a piece of the fair.

I'm very happy

with the resonance of people.

This is the first night tonight,

and I think this is the major

piece of the whole show.

He is not here

and I called him more than twice

but he won't pick up

So, that picture

that you see right there...

We're gonna put that here,

in a tattoo, a real tattoo.

It'll say, "thanks, banksy."

This looks better

than in the garage, no?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah!

- Yeah.

So, now today or tomorrow,

they look, and then

they come back, and then...

Today is a circus, you know?

Everyone's looking...

"Neh, neh, neh, neh, neh."

So, the asking price is $350,000.

I think it's a very significant

piece from the New York show.

And I'm happy that they contacted me

and that we were able to make a deal.

I think we're gonna sell it.

Good luck with that.

Good.

You could cry, too,

if it happened to you

I'm gonna be around,

see what I can find.

The rich see the art about money.

Banksy see the art about art.

You would cry, too,

if it happened to you

He did it when he was

in New York, in November.

So, he sets it up

every time you move it?

- Banksy?

- yeah.

No. he... he has nothing to do with it.

I hope so.

If they're gonna just

tear it down and build condos,

why they hell did they have

to paint over everything?

They painted over it

so there wasn't, like, a dispute

on making it a monument

or, like, a historic site.

By whitewashing the building,

there's no more argument.

They win.

To me, 5 pointz really is

part of a larger development

in New York,

where, essentially,

the value of real estate

has become so prohibitively expensive

that it's becoming

increasingly difficult

for cultural organizations to function.

A lot of the development

that takes place

is for people with a lot of money...

It drives out people that lived

in their neighborhoods

for a long time,

that the benefits of new development

aren't being shared anywhere

near as well as we want them to,

that the inequality crisis

hits neighborhoods often

in the form of some new

glass-and-steel luxury tower.

People are angry.

People are asking a lot of questions,

and graffiti has long been

one way people ask them.

In "the grapes of wrath,"

John steinbeck writes,

"a homeless hungry man,

driving the roads

with his wife beside him

and his thin children in the backseat,

could look at the fallow fields

that might produce food,

but not for profit,

and that man could know

how a fallow field is a sin

and the unused land a crime

against the thin children."

Here's today's piece.

Today's... and final piece.

It says, "an inflatable throw-up

on the long island expressway."

Oh, there's audio. Okay.

"And that's it.

Thanks for your Patience.

It's been fun.

Save 5 pointz. Bye."

Well, this is the last day of the show,

and I'd like to say

we're going out on a high note.

And I guess, in a way, we are.

You!

You!

Graffiti god banksy

wraps up New York residency

with this final work,

and his admirers, of course,

flock to the site,

including some who may have

admired it a little too much.

You could see the piece.

It was beautiful.

But within minutes,

they came up with the ladder.

...scaling the side

of a building with a hatchet

to cut down the valuable work of art.

Someone's taking the piece down!

I want to be a part of it

It's an homage of sorts

to the most prevalent form of graffiti

in the city that invented it

for the modern era.

These vagabond shoes

As fans gathered to see the piece,

two men were seeing trying

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