Banksy to NYC Hip: I'm Not There

MAKING THE BANK Latest Banksy, London

The opening reception for the infamously aloof artist Banksy was met with mixed hipster reviews on Sunday. New Yorkers lined up around the block outside of the Vanina Holasek Gallery, waiting in the snow for admittance to the tiny, three-story space decorated in rattraps, spray-painted blood, and spectacularly priced graffiti art prints. Straight from the Bankrobber Gallery in London, the collection is speculated to be either some sort of incomprehensible ironic statement or a complete sell out that could forfeit Banksy's hard-earned street cred.

The British artist, know more for his antics than his art, smuggled his work into major museums, placed 500 copies of an imposter Paris Hilton CD in record stores, and infiltrated Disneyland, leaving behind a blow up doll costumed as a Guantanamo Bay detainee. His star-studded fan club includes Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Kate Moss, Jude Law, and Damien Hirst.

The exhibition, appropriately, and perhaps, ironically, subtitled "Laughing all the way to the Banksy," features many of the artist's most famous, thus most pricey pieces. "Jack and Jill," a print of polka dotted children in bullet proof vests, had $300,000 scribbled in pencil on the wall next to it, while Banksy's parody of Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe (with Moss in the Monroe role) is bargain basement priced at $175,000. But despite the high-profile, high-price mockery, his identity somehow remains a mystery.

The subterfuge surrounding the artist seems to be pretty good PR considering many of the people lined up outside came in a foiled attempt to spot Banksy in the flesh. Many whispered about whether each passing flyer hander-outer was the real deal and discussed various assumptions of his appearance ("He must be pretty fit from all that running from the cops," etc). Sadly, he didn't show. Or maybe he did, cleverly disguised as a hip. No one will ever know.

The artist wasn't the only thing missing, however. Robin, co-owner of the Bankrobber Gallery, who preferred to keep his last name a mystery "for continuity's sake," wasn't terribly surprised to find pursed-lipped, humorless gallery-goers at the New York reception.

"I wish they were a bit happier about it," he told Radar. "They look like they're going to church." Visitors squeaked around the cramped rooms of the West 27th Street space, "cueing like little ducks," without a giggle. Even prints of Winston Churchill with a green mohawk and Queen Victoria sitting on a woman's face inspired neither a smile nor a little misbehavior. American audiences, exceptionally lame compared to those fun-loving Brits, do what they're told and assume that everything in a gallery is entitled to a bit of respect, he says. They didn't even steal the beer.

Robin, for his part, withdrew a giant sharpie from his pocket and stopped traffic to write "MIND YOUR HEAD!" on the ceiling. Several minutes later a young woman paused, seemingly without irony, to photograph his work of art.