The artist will donate the profits to this hospital to fund a new unit for the support of the STROKE and the purchase of equipment for the rehabilitation of children
A triptych of street artist Banksy on the migration crisis has been sold for 2.2 million pounds (2.4 million euros in the course of Tuesday evening) at Sotheby’s in London, for the benefit of a children’s hospital of Bethlehem, in the west bank. The result has exceeded the estimates, between 800,000 and 1.2 million pounds (883 000 and 1.3 million euros).
The three oil paintings that make up “a View of the Mediterranean sea, the 2017” is a response of the artist to the migration crisis that has hit Europe since the year 2010. It “took three old paintings romantic, who represented marine landscapes of the Nineteenth century”, which he then sprinkled “life jackets or buoys discontinued,” says Sotheby’s in a statement.
Purchase of equipment and new unit
With these paintings, Banksy “juxtaposes in his inimitable style a new kind of art history with a question of contemporary politics – the tragic death of thousands of migrants have attempted to cross the Mediterranean to reach the european Union”, according to the auction house. More than 100 000 migrants have attempted to cross the Mediterranean by 2019 and more than 1,200 perished at sea, according to the international Organization for migration.
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Since its creation in 2017, the triptych was exhibited at Bethlehem, in the hotel “The Walled Off” opened by the artist himself, where all the rooms give directly on the wall erected by Israel in the west bank. Banksy has announced that he reverserait the entire profit to the hospital BASR Bethlehem, in order to finance a new unit for the support of the STROKE and the purchase of equipment for the rehabilitation of children.
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The contemporary artist, regularly discusses the issue of the migration crisis. In 2015, he had painted a portrait of Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple and son of a migrant from syria, on the wall of a refugee camp in Calais, in northern France. He had also achieved in 2019, at the Venice Biennale, the stencil of a child in a lifejacket, taking a distress rocket rose.