[skue]

> Giving it a monetary value defeats the whole purpose of it.

And what if the purpose is the absurdity of its monetary value?

I don't believe that Banksy's goal is to have his work be seen as curios. It's getting us to have these conversations.

[lifeformed]

I agree, and I think the message is clear: we've perverted what people call "high art". To paraphrase another post I made, we've raised "art" on a pedestal behind protective glass, as something that supposedly only highly-cultured people can appreciate. We've applied this perversion to Banksy's graffiti in a very ironic way:

People want to preserve the paintings, even though they're intentionally transient. They want to cut them out of the wall, even though the environmental context is critical to the piece. They want to sell them for tons of money, even though it's been freely given in a public space, for everyone to appreciate.

In short, people want to destroy the whole artistic value of the piece in order to increase the monetary value. I guess all that remains is the meta-message that predicts this outcome.