Yet another shady story involving Banksy's art and false promises of charitable donations. First there was the BNE collaboration that never was, and their subsequent fallout with Charity: Water. Now, The Telegraph is reporting that the "Stealing Banksy?" auction (which followed the unauthorized exhibition that Banksy called "disgusting") did not benefit charities in the way that it claimed.
The private auction of nine Banksy works was organized by the Sincura Group. Sincura Group director Tony Baxter told Vandalog that "100% of the profits from the sale of No Ball Games will be given to the local charity Step by Step, which helps underprivileged children in the Tottenham Area." The funny thing is, according to Telegraph, "there is no charity called Step by Step in Tottenham, and a homelessness charity called Step by Step, based in Aldershot, tell The Telegraph that they have never heard of Sincura Group, the Stealing Banksy auction and don’t have a branch in Tottenham." That's strike one.
Strike two- The "Stealing Banksy?" website states that the Sincura Group would make a charitable donation to The Nelson Mandela Children's Fund (UK), and the charity was supposed to "receive a share of all ticket sales, auction registrations, art sales and corporate events." Instead, they told the publication that they are only benefiting from the sale of one piece in the auction and a portion of the ticket sales.
And the final strike- The Tree of Hope CEO Jeremy Marris says that his charity was promised 5% from the sale of another piece in the auction, and has asked the Sincura Group how much the piece sold for. He has yet to hear from them and the auction website was not updated within 24 hours with news about the sale, as was promised.
An update is scheduled for May 10 that will reveal "the true motives behind the show" as well as the locations of the artwork and info about the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund donation, but the Sincura Group may have a bit more explaining to do by then.
RELATED: Banksy Calls the "Stealing Banksy?" Exhibition in London "Disgusting"
RELATED: The Curator Responsible For Removing and Selling Banksy's Art Talks Ethics and Legality
[via Telegraph]
