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)

Dealers and auction houses will test demand for Asian antiques and art this week in London with works priced up to 5 million pounds ($8.1 million).
Collectors are being offered everything from a bronze Buddha to jade carvings. Nearly 50 commercial galleries and 17 museums are showing artworks ranging from Islamic to Japanese — spanning 5,000 years — in the 11th annual Asian Art in London, running through Nov. 12. The week also features auctions of  Asian material by Sotheby’s, Christie’s International and Bonhams.
The event comes at a time when losses on the world’s stock markets and contracting economic growth have begun to reduce sales of Asian art. On Sept. 16 at Sotheby’s, New York, a 312-lot auction of Chinese ceramics and works of art found buyers for 56 percent of the material. On Oct. 7, a Christie’s sale of Islamic and Indian art in London had a success rate of 47 percent.
“There’s an air of caution around,” said the Mayfair-based dealer Roger Keverne, a specialist in Chinese art, who this week is offering an 18th-century green jade brushpot priced at 250,000 pounds. “Anything of top quality continues to sell, but there’s definitely been a softening at the lower end.”
During the last five years, competition between Western and Asian collectors pushed up prices for Chinese white jade artifacts and colored 18th-century and 19th-century porcelain by up to 40 percent, said Keverne. (Bloomberg)

Christie’s International sold $16.9 million of paintings and jewels in a two-day sale in Dubai, below estimates, as falling oil and equity prices dented the boom in Middle East art.
The highlight, a trio of vast calligraphy works called “Triptych (La Passion avec croix, ame et bagages, and triangle bigames)” by Algerian artist Rachid Koraichi sold for $482,500, compared with a $400,000-$600,000 estimate. The auction house had estimated the sale of jewelry on Oct. 29 and modern art yesterday would together tally $32 million to $43 million.
“It’s a bargain for the buyers,” said Tariq al-Jaidah, a collector from Qatar, at yesterday’s art auction. He spent more than $300,000 on three works including $170,500 on an untitled piece by Lebanese artist Nabil Nahas that was estimated to be worth $150,000 to $200,000.
Record fuel prices encouraged Christie’s and rival Bonhams to begin auctions in the oil-rich Middle East two years ago. Since oil prices peaked on July 11 at $147.27 a barrel, the commodity has dropped 55 percent as a banking crisis dried up credit, driving economies toward recession.
Christie’s sold 70 percent of the lots offered yesterday, compared to 84 percent at its first sale of the year in April. The auction house said it didn’t provide price guarantees to the sellers.
Parvis Tanavoli, whose sculpture “The Wall (Oh Persepolis)” sold for a record $2.84 million in April, offered a 3 meter-tall bronze sculpture, “Poet in Love,” that fetched $242,500, against a low estimate of $400,000. Mohammed Ehsai’s “Loving Whisper,” depicting ribbons of red calligraphy on a black background, sold for $482,500 against an estimate of $300,000-$500,000. Sale prices include buyer’s premium. (Bloomberg)

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.