Even in the era of Banksy, some view the work of street artists as little more than graffiti: idle daubings on walls and bus shelters that councils have to pay people to clean up. But those who stumble across works they find littered around London later this week may well be in for a surprise.
Art worth an estimated £1m is being given away by one of the world’s leading street artists, Adam Neate, in an exhibition that will see 1,000 pieces deposited across the capital and left for whoever wishes to take them.
In recent years Neate’s work has graced the fashionable Elms Lesters Painting Rooms in London, yet his roots lie in creating paintings and sculptures designed for urban locations. And this Friday’s Street Art Action marks a return to that way of working – only now his pieces fetch up to £43,000 each.
The action will begin before dawn, when helpers will begin distributing the hand-painted pieces on the outskirts of the city, moving inwards towards the city centre as the day goes on. While some will be left at famous landmarks around the capital many pieces will be placed in less salubrious areas of the city – both Lambeth and Hackney will be decorated.
It comes at a time when the industry – which was booming until relatively recently – seems on the verge of grinding to a halt. New York auction houses were hit last week, with Sotheby’s failing to sell a third of works at its impressionist and modern art sale. But Neate insisted: “It is nothing to do with the state of the market – it is about putting back in what I got out at the beginning of my career.”The artist’s aim is to reinforce the idea that street art was originally intended to be a gift, free and fun for everyone to enjoy. “It has always been a dream of mine to do a show around the whole of London, to take over the whole city in one go. I want everybody to be able to see it, but once the pieces are out there I don’t mind what happens to them,” he said.
Each piece will be autographed, so anyone who stumbles upon an original artwork on Friday, or on subsequent days, will know whether or not the piece is an Adam Neate original. The 30-year-old began leaving pieces of art on the streets of Ipswich early on in his career, but has not left any for the last four years.
The value of urban art has sky-rocketed in the past year, with high-profile artists such as Banksy being seen at prestigious galleries and regularly selling for hundreds of thousands of pounds. When the world’s first art sale dedicated to urban art was held at Bonhams auction house in February, 99 per cent of the lots sold.
While only time will tell whether urban art will have much lasting value, the street art movement currently has the support of A-list celebrities such as Angelina Jolie, who reportedly spent £200,000 on works by Banksy. (The Independent)

Auction house Bonhams is getting increasingly closer to contemporary art and in particular, it is focusing its attention on Street Art. In a period when all the auction houses have a department dedicated to contemporary art, even this year Bonhams is going to try and buy up the market with the sale of 122 lots that will be auctioned on 23rd October at its New Bond Street venue in London. Works of contemporary art executed by a new wave of emerging artists, who most times offer fresh, sharp, politically engaging and stimulating pieces.

The month of September inaugurated a new historical moment, due to the failure of Lehman Brothers Holding Inc., historical society active in financial services. Since then we have witnessed the collapse of world stock markets and observed various consequences for every sector. With a degree of optimism it was hoped that the art market could have maintained its stability, but from the latest auctions it can be inferred that the great cold of the economic crisis is affecting even this sector.

Hirst, who topped the list in 2005, retakes the top spot after a recent sale of his work which made £111m.
The magazine said Hirst - famous for his animals preserved in formaldehyde - “overshadowed and outshone” in an art market shaken by the credit crunch.
Mysterious graffiti artist Banksy made the the list at 63 - the first street artist to do so.
The list also includes art collectors, gallery curators and institutions active in the world of art.
Financial clout
Kathy Halbreich, an associate director of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, becomes the first woman to make the top 10 in her own right.
Russian billionaire and Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich also enters the list at 54 as a collector of art.
Figures from China and India’s art worlds have made progress this year, with Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang rising 30 places to 69.
Earlier this year, he became the first Chinese artist to stage a solo exhibition at New York’s Guggenheim museum.
Hirst’s star has risen on the list in the last two years - in 2006 he was outside the top 10, and moved up to sixth place last year.
Another well-known name, collector Charles Saatchi, has slipped from seven in 2007 to 14.
He topped the first power list, which was published in 2002.
Art figures are measured on a number of criteria including financial clout, influence on the international stage and activity in the past year. (BBC NEWS)

For days, New Yorkers had walked past workmen installing a pet shop. Spotting what appeared to be a leopard and monkey through the window on 7th Avenue, a few had even marched in to complain about the small space in which the wild animals were confined. But yesterday, The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill was revealed to be the latest work by the street artist Banksy, complete with convincingly real “animatronic” creatures that moved around the store to beguile onlookers.
The pet shop is open for business every day until midnight until 31 October and although people cannot buy its contents, they can walk in and view the “exhibition”, Banksy’s first in New York.
Artworks inside include two fish fingers floating in a fish bowl, robotic rabbits wearing pearl necklaces, a couple of chicken nuggets which appear to be sipping ketchup, hot dogs writhing underneath heat lamps and a CCTV camera nurturing its young. A middle-aged man in overalls, employed by Banksy, dragged an “Open for Business” sign on to the pavement yesterday to mark its opening.
The street artist from Bristol offered a written explanation for the installation. He said: “New Yorkers don’t care about art, they care about pets. So I’m exhibiting them instead.”
He added that there was a serious, philosophical aspect to the work, saying: “I wanted to make art that questioned our relationship with animals and the ethics and sustainability of factory farming but it ended up as chicken nuggets singing.”
For fans of his work, the sudden emergence of the guerrilla artwork was a characteristic move. There was no opening party, no guest-list and no complimentary drinks. The shop had taken him four weeks to refit a store that had sold trinkets. Before it was outed as an artwork by The New York Times, it had attracted genuine customers last weekend, who were sent away by workmen who claimed the shop was not quite ready for business.
It is the latest in a string of cultural hijackings that have seen Banksy travel the world installing fake museum exhibits, and statues. What appeared to be most extraordinary for New Yorkers yesterday was that the pet shop appeared to be a fully functioning retail outlet that boasted a menagerie of lifelike models of exotic creatures and several endangered species of wild birds.
There had been hints that Banksy was in town, days before the pet shop appeared, with a series of giant rat paintings appearing across lower Manhattan during the past seven days.
Banksy defended the pet show exhibition even though it contained no graffiti by saying: “If it’s art and you can see it from the street, I guess it could still be considered street art.”
The exhibition is clearly visible day and night through the large shop frontage and has caused scenes of congestion and concern amongst local residents. Banksy said: “There have been complaints from people who are unhappy about being on their way to work and seeing two hot dogs performing a sex act. But it’s no more unnatural than the process behind making a sausage in the first place.” (The Independent)

Ever since she made her debut as a skinny 14-year-old in Calvin Klein jeans, Kate Moss has been queen of the world’s catwalks and glossy fashion magazine covers.Now she has another crown: the most popular artist’s muse of modern times. Lucian Freud, Banksy, Chuck Close, Alex Katz, Gary Hume and Stella Vine, among others, have been captivated by her and she has even drawn herself in lipstick.
Yesterday, Marc Quinn’s life-size gold sculpture of the 34-year-old model joined the collection of artworks inspired by Moss.
Quinn’s statue was unveiled as part of “Statuephilia”, a British Museum exhibition of contemporary art. The metallic Moss, Siren, is thought to be the largest gold statue since the time of ancient Egypt. The 50kg solid 18-carat gold statue, insured for £10m, was created by Quinn as part of a series featuring the model. His 2006 sculpture, Sphinx, featured Ms Moss in another yoga position. Siren will be on display to the public at the museum from tomorrow until January.
Quinn, who hopes to show the image across the world, suggested she had an abstract appeal for artists. “This sculpture is about the abstractions that rule our lives, the desire for money, immortality, for beauty. Kate Moss is a cultural hallucination we have all agreed to create.
“She is the only person who has the ubiquity and silence that is required in an image of divinity, that has been created through time, so that we can project onto it,” he said.
James Fox, co-curator of the display at the British Museum, agreed artists had become fascinated by the zeitgeist spirit she represents. “It’s not about Kate Moss in its accuracy to her character. It’s using her likeness that has become so iconic to explore broader themes, to make a familiar face unfamiliar,” he said.
“What Quinn might be doing here is creating her in a cult-like form, in a solid-gold state, as a comment on celebrity culture and how it has mythologised Moss like a goddess, feverishly,” he said. (THE INDEPENDENT)