For god’s sake take this with all the grains of salt in the world, because the timing of everything feels a little bit too convenient.
Believe it or not, Melbourne might have just scored itself a brand new Banksy piece in a famous city haven for street art, and further still, someone might have caught the infamously elusive artist in the act.
The city is about to welcome the sprawling ‘Art of Banksy‘ exhibition, which is set to take over huge chunks of Federation Square from this Friday through till late January. So the timing is absolutely right for the man himself to make an “appearance” in town somewhere.
But what’s even more curious is that someone wandering the city last night *might* have managed to do the seemingly impossible: Catch Banksy, in the act of putting up a piece, on video.
A strange, largely unidentified YouTube clip posted up this morning claims to have caught Banksy red-handed as he worked in the laneway. A user identified only as ‘Mia S‘ posted the smartphone footage which shows her approaching someone as they work on the piece, running after them after they spotted her, and then being shooed away hastily.
Remember that thing we said about all the grains of salt? Because as clear as the video is, you’ve gotta ask: Did she walk up Hosier Lane, past people doing a street art, and the people doing the street art didn’t flinch the first time? Also who just runs the fuck up to someone screaming “BANKSY?!!”
If that is indeed Banksy, the implications are quite obviously massive. But with that said there’s also the theory that “Banksy” isn’t a lone individual anymore, rather a street team headed up by a chief artist who stays off the street nowadays to avoid situations exactly like this.
And there’s also that little itty bitty thing about his major exhibition opening up literally across the road in 2 days’ time, which would render a stunt like this PRECISELY the kind of thing you’d do as a little underground promo.
So yeah, look. Colour us skeptical about this one at best.
But with that said, and if ever the phrase was appropriate it’s now: Huge if true.
HUGE if true.
‘The Art of Banksy‘ opens this Friday, October 7th. You can scope out tickets from the exhibition’s website.
