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Mediterranean Sea View: Banksy artwork about European migrant crisis to raise money for Palestinian hospital at Sotheby’s auction
The triptych, Mediterranean Sea View 2017, will showcase at Sotheby’s “Rembrandt to Richter” auction on Tuesday, and is expected to bring between $1 million - $1.5 million.
Bristol-based anonymous street artist, Banksy has donated a triptych (an artwork which is divided in three sections) to auction company Sotheby’s, and the proceeds from the sale of the artwork will go to a hospital in Bethlehem in the West Bank. The triptych, Mediterranean Sea View 2017, will showcase at Sotheby’s “Rembrandt to Richter” auction on Tuesday, and is expected to bring between $1 million - $1.5 million. According to Sotheby’s, this money will help fund the construction of a new acute stroke unit, and the purchasing of children’s rehabilitation equipment for the Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation.
The painting was originally installed in the lobby of Banksy’s Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem. The artwork is a reference to the European migrant crisis and is painted over used canvases in the style of the 19th century seascape while referencing to one of the 21st century’s biggest issues. The painting shows crashing waves washing abandoned lifejackets, oars and buoys washing ashore, a sight referring to all the lives lost at sea during the migrant crisis.
Sotheby’s head of contemporary art for Europe, Alex Branczik, said in a press release, “In Mediterranean sea view 2017, Banksy corrupts three found oil paintings with his own witty reworkings to create something that, while posing as a 19th-century seascape, spotlights one of the burning issues of the 21st century. In ‘Rembrandt to Richter,’ this triptych hangs in Sotheby’s galleries alongside works by some of history’s greatest landscape painters, including Bellotto, Van Goyen and Turner. Banksy’s work, however, stands alone for its potent political message.”
If it sells for its high estimate, Mediterranean Sea View 2017 will become the fourth-biggest auction result for a work by Banksy. The last artwork of Banksy’s that was sold at Sotheby’s, Devolved Parliament (2009), auctioned for $12.1 million, which was about five times its high estimate. And if Mediterranean Sea View 2017 also sells for its high estimate, it will become Banksy’s fourth biggest auction result. The Sotheyby’s auction will feature artworks across five centuries of art history, including Rembrandt, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró and Banksy.
Since the coronavirus lockdown, Banksy has been creating several pandemic-related artwork, the latest being a spray-painted call to action in the London Underground which advised people to mask up, however, it was promptly removed by the cleaning crews of Transport for London. In April, Banksy showcased his bathroom artwork which showed several rats, his signature symbol, frantically rushing about.
