On Monday, June 1st, a fresco by street artist Banksy, measuring 10 x 2.5 m and painted on a tractor-trailer in 1998, was sold to Hôtel Drouot for €600,000. The piece depicts the spirit of “raving” with these texts in English: “It’s better not to rely too much on silent majorities… for silence is a fragile thing… one loud noise and it’s gone.” The characters, wearing soldiers’ uniforms, storm a site by sea, at night, from inflatable dinghies loaded with sound systems. The right half is taken up by the word, “Stealth,” tagged by Inkie, another figure in Bristol’s graffiti art scene. The composition ends with a person crouching down, holding a megaphone. Although Banksy’s typical graphic style is not recognizable here, we do see that his sense of humor, anti-establishment hijacking of objects, and staging are, indeed, all present.
