Street art: a Banksy sold for nearly 20 million euros for the benefit of the British health service

A little boy threw his Batman and Superman figures in the trash.

Her favorite heroine is a nurse with a mask and a red cross on her blouse.

This drawing, the British street artist Banksy had initially given to the Southampton hospital, in May 2020, during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic.

A "personal tribute to those who continue to reverse the course of the pandemic" he explained.

Banksy's “Game Changer” (“This has changed the situation” in French) was a light of hope for the staff and patients of this hospital in the south of England.

If a reproduction of the work will remain with the sick, the artist wished to sell the original at auction for the benefit of the NHS ”, the national health service, explained Katharine Arnold, co-director, in charge of the art according to -war and contemporary in Europe at Christie's.

One year after confinement

Sold the day the United Kingdom celebrates the anniversary of its first confinement, at the end of a breathtaking auction session, the auctioneer hailed an "extraordinary success" and a "historic moment".

"Thank you very much obviously to Banksy for this incredible gesture", he declared, recalling that "most of the proceeds will be used for the well-being of the staff and the patients of the hospital of Southampton".

Initially estimated at between 2.5 and 3.5 million pounds (2.9 and 4 million euros), "Game Changer" ("This has changed the situation") was finally sold at Christie's more than four times as much. expensive, nearly 20 million euros, far exceeding the previous record of Banksy, whose painting "The Parliament of the Apes" was sold in 2019 at 9.9 million pounds (11.5 million euros at current rate).

By giving the work to caregivers last May, the artist left them a note saying: “Thank you for everything you do.

I hope this will brighten up the place a bit, even if it's only in black and white ”.

According to Paula Head, Managing Director of Southampton Hospital, Banksy's gift "made a huge difference to the morale of the hospital and the people who work there", "all staff" describing "the joyous impact" that had the work on them.

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In recent years, the enigmatic contemporary artist from Bristol, with an unknown identity, has kept contemporary art circles spellbound with his emblematic causes (migrants, opposition to Brexit, denunciation of the Islamists) and has driven the auctions into a panic. last years.

The partial and provocative self-destruction of her canvas in October 2018, just after its acquisition at Sotheby's in London by a collector for more than a million euros, had created a global buzz.