Banksy’s identity may finally be revealed!

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to By Amara. Sorry, that was a very abrupt head movement if you're watching this.

I was like,. I just spit all over myself. Anyway, hello, everyone.

Welcome back to By Amara. This is a clusterfuck of a weekly news show where we'll take a look at some of the weird, strange, and downright odd things that happen in the art and history fields. I'm your host and personal curator, Amara Andrew.

If you've already left, I don't blame you. Bye. Have a good life.

This week, we're talking about a Danish artist who was sued for pocketing money from his own artwork, over 10,000 ancient earthworks revealed in the Amazon basin, and how Banksy's identity might finally be revealed. We've all that and more coming up on this episode of By Amara. Let's get to it.

Hello! Oh, sorry. That was loud.

That was very Mrs. Doubtfire of me. Hello!

Welcome back to By Amara. This is episode 51. I did too many hands.

51 or 51? Nope, that's right. There we go.

It's probably better to watch the show, honestly, cause if you're trying to listen to this and I'm just fucking around, then it's probably very confusing. Anywho, welcome back to the show. I hope you've had a very good week.

It has been a slow, but like, okay week. I don't know, I get like addicted to having people around when we go to conferences, and I talked about this last week. Oh, also, my voice is totally back.

Yay! I still can't hit like one tiny little note that gets like up really high, so like Jeff sometimes will scare me in the house. I know he's in here.

I know he's in here, but like he comes around a corner and I jump and I'm I'm not a jumpy person at all, typically. But like just, I don't know why I jump. So I go.

So, see? I can't still hit that high note, so I guess if I'm on a walk in the woods, you can attack me and I can't scream for help, so that's good to know.

Anyway. Let's see. Yeah, so what the fuck was I talking about?

Where am I? Who am I? That is a loaded question.

Yeah, so anyway, so when we get back from conferences, I'm always like I have that come down, and I still need to figure out how to navigate that, because I like having people around, apparently, now. Certain people, it depends. But just having like that life around and those like exciting things to do and go to and everything, I don't know, I need to implement that into my daily life still.

So, I'm working on that. If you have any pointers, let me know in the comments, because I need help. Lots of help.

And we are finally back on our normal schedule for this podcast. I know it's been a little wonky for the past like, probably 5 months or something, I don't know. Time is irrelevant.

Time is all made up, so nothing really matters. But, that's something that Jeff and I talk about all the time, which is everything's made up and nothing matters, which is very true, if you really sit and think about it, literally everything is made up, and it fucks with your mind so hard, but it's also very freeing. So, that is like part of the reason why I started this podcast, cause I was like, I don't know, I guess we're going down this rabbit hole, but just like I was so afraid to put myself out there and actually do something like this, cause this is so not me, typically, or who I thought me was.

Who is me? Me is me. But anyway, so like just having that realization of, yeah, literally everything is made up and like other people do this, why can't I?

So, anyway, I guess that's like your rally cry for this week, like go do things, cause everything's made up and ephemeral and nothing matters. Where the fuck was I going with that? I guess it doesn't matter, so just take that as it is.

But yeah, just trying to get back into normal everyday life is difficult for me. And again, now we are leaving again next week, so we will have an episode next week, but it might be a little earlier, or no, it'll probably be right on time. I'm just thinking out loud, Jesus Christ, this is like a stream of consciousness.

You can see my water in the frame, I just realized. Go away. So, yeah, so we'll be going back to my homeland, Azurbona, Arizona.

We call it Azurbona cause we find that funny. We have stupid humor. But we're going back to my homeland because one of my best friends from high school is getting married, which I'm very excited for.

Obviously, I'm not very much a marriage wedding sort of person, but I'm very excited to see her go through this, cause she's going to be like one of the first people who's like very close to me get married, so I'm, I don't know, I'm I just can't wait. It's going to be very fun, and like one of my other best friends from high school is going to be doing all of our makeup and like the, it's not like a bridal party, but it's like her group of bitches, I guess.

Oh my god, if I ever did get married, that is exactly what I'd want to call it. But anyway, so it's like technically a bridal party, but not, because she wants to keep it super casual. But anyway, the my other best friend is doing our makeup, so it's just going to be very cute and wholesome, and I'm just going to, it's going to warm up my cold, dead, un-beating heart.

It's beating, obviously. That's basically it. Oh, and then, literally the day after the wedding, we're going to San Diego, cause some people that we shot with in Dallas, which I've talked about before, they are also going to be at yet another conference.

So, I'm going to get my dopamine rush, and then after that, I really need to figure out what I'm doing, cause then there's like no conferences until February or something. So, February? February.

So, I need to figure that shit out. Might need to start like a support group. So, yeah.

Why? Oh, so then we'll be in San Diego, which will be fun. So, we get to see all those peeps and have a hootenanny.

I did finish decorating for Halloween, which I am very excited about. You can't, nope, you can't see jack shit, cause this is, I forgot, different camera now. But I finished putting shit up, I have like bats on all the walls, and I don't know, I really like bats, so I find it very fun.

And like cobwebs everywhere, so I don't have to clean. Woo! And yeah, I just, I really like decorating for Halloween.

I would want our house to look like Halloween all the time, but I guess it would lose its spark and luster, so anyway. I think that's about it. I'm just fucking blabbering, again.

Now that I have my voice back, I'm like, I'm going to use it! Oh, I messed up my wrist a little bit when I was lifting weights today, that was unfortunate, but still works. I can do this.

So, that's good. Anyway, let's just get into the show.

This week, we are starting off with a very conceptual sort of art piece. I've I'm torn on how I feel about this, but ultimately, I think I really enjoy this sort of idea. But anyway, a Danish artist lost a court case after he pocketed the money he received from a museum to recreate two of his artworks for an exhibition that they were putting on.

It's literally, exactly not what you think. It's It's a very weird story, but obviously, that's why we're talking about it, because this is a very weird podcast. In 2021, the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Denmark gave artist Jens Haaning 534,000 kroner, or about 80,000 U.S.

Dollars, to recreate two of his artworks for their exhibition. These artworks were created by him in 2007 and 2010. So, he is a very conceptual artist.

You can look up his stuff. It's really fascinating work. And these two pieces, in particular, are really fascinating, cause they're actually meant to represent the respective average annual income, annual, annual incomes of Austrian and Danes, using these banknotes to showcase it.

In this case, though, when he was delivering the artworks, he actually delivered two empty canvases. So, obviously, the museum's like, "Where the hell are the your banknotes? Where is this?

Like, what is going on with this artwork?" Apparently, he pocketed the cash, declaring, quote, "The work is that I have taken their money. It's not theft. It's a breach of contract, and breach of contract is part of the work," end quote.

Like, literally, he said that this is part of his new work called, quote, "Take the Money and Run." He stated that, you know, this new artwork, "Take the Money and Run," was created, partly, because of the low fees that were offered to him by the institution. Apparently, they offered him 10,000 kroner, which was about 1,600 U.S.

Dollars in 2021 when he was commissioned, stating that it would have actually cost him an extra 25,000 kroner, or about 4,000 U.S. Dollars, in addition to all of his other expenses. So, this would have cost him money to give this artwork or make these artworks for the museum.

So, instead, he pocketed the $80,000 from them. Like I said, he stated that this is supposed to be part of his new work, "Take the Money and Run." That specific conceptual piece is to serve as a critique of the artwork, specifically talking or of the art world, rather, excuse me, specifically talking about Denmark, where, apparently, there's minimal financial help for artists there.

I have no idea. I mean, I, obviously, as art people, as creators, like there is minimal financial support that's available to people other than like grants and endowments and all that bullshit, which is awful and it's like one person in the world gets like all the awards. So, that was sort of what he was stating is like the impetus behind this piece.

He also wanted it to be an acknowledgment of how the art world, even though it's raging against the capitalist system, it is very much part of it, but also that it's part of it, because the artists themselves, they get to sort of choose how valuable their artwork is, but at the end of the day, there are a myriad other factors, especially like these institutions, galleries, things like that, who ultimately decide how valuable your artwork is.

And it's extremely subjective, it's a shitty practice, but that's just how it goes

There may be anywhere between 10,000 and 24,000 hidden, ancient, fuck, earthworks. I fucked that up. Let's try it again.

I promise I'll get it on this one. There may be anywhere between 10,000 and 24,000 ancient earthworks hidden in the Amazon Basin. Yes, I got it.

A team of researchers from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research, which kind of doesn't make sense, I wonder if it's like space or space, anyway, a team of researchers used remote sensing Light Detection and Ranging, or LiDAR, technology to identify and reproduce extremely detailed images of 24 newly discovered archaeological sites beneath the Amazon forest covering.

That shit is so dense. How dense is it? It's so dense, it's denser than me.

But the Amazon rainforest is so dense, where it hasn't been deforested and taken away and all that shit, it is extremely dense, which is why they had to do light sensing technology to be able to see through all of it and be able to see the floor, because you can't. So anyway, the 24 newly discovered archaeological sites include a fortified village, an ancient plaza town, and then just several rectangular and circular geoglyphs that were used for ceremonial, domestic, hunting, and defensive purposes.

So, a wide variety of different uses, uses. Wide variety of different uses for these things. Let me just take a minute.

So, what the hell is an earthwork? An earthwork is a human-created land formation, and it can either be into the Earth or above the Earth. So, like you could have like mounds of dirt that create an earthwork, or it's like you cut into the Earth, and you make various different designs, and it could have, you know, just like actual like reasons behind it, so like defensive purposes and stuff, so you have like a trench, essentially.

You could also have it for a specific design, so then it has ceremonial purposes, and things like that to it. But you can do a wide variety of different things. There's an artist, I forget his name right now, but he's very well known for all of his different earthworks, and it's just phenomenal.

There are already some earthworks that have actually been found within the Amazon, but unfortunately, this is largely due to deforestation. So, there were just, you know, trees and shrubs, and all the plant vegetation and everything is cleared out, so then you can very clearly see these earthworks within the Earth. But now, obviously, researchers are trying to see others through the Amazon's canopy, which is what we're talking about today.

In addition to these earthworks, the researchers also found hundreds of tree species, which I thought was really fascinating. These tree species show evidence of domestication by ancient peoples, and then it also shows that there may have been purpose of having them near the earthwork. So, whether ceremonial, some actual like there's like a purpose to it, maybe shade or like water retention, that would probably make sense.

It feels like sucking the water away from the earthwork. I have no idea. That's my own speculation.

They didn't actually say it in their study either in the Journal Science, but that's just my own speculation. Anyway, previously, it was believed that ancient earthworks were more probable in areas with high temperatures and low less precipitation, mainly because, quote, "the presence of a drier season facilitates burning, which could help remove the vegetation for building earth structures," end quote.

I was also thinking, too, which is what led me to the tree thing, that, you know, if there's less precipitation, it won't wash your earthwork away. With these new LiDAR scans, though, the narrative has actually been changed. It's now believed that, quote, "pre-Columbian societies engaged in earthwork construction in all other regions, covering a broader area than previously thought." So, it was thought that they were only done in this one specific area because of their high temperature and less precipitation.

Now, however, it's found basically almost everywhere, which is really cool, like throughout the Amazon. There's a larger concentration in the southwestern Amazonia, though, and that area has the earliest evidence of plant cultivation and domestication, and then the oldest anthropogenic soil. So, there's that.

Anthropogenic soil sounds like a metal band, and that would be amazing. So, not only is this discovery fascinating because it's actually helping rewrite the history of where these earthworks were created and who by, and all these various different things, but it's also going to help Indigenous peoples who are struggling to recognize their right to land originally inhabited by their ancestors.

So, this serves as proof, "Hey, ancestors were here." the only problem, though, is that to date, only 9% of earthworks are located inside Indigenous lands and protected areas, meaning that what, 91% of these earthworks are outside of these protected areas. So, literally, anybody can go in there and destroy them, and there's no minimal to no protection.

I mean, maybe there are some laws and things like that, but they're just out there on their own. So, hopefully, this can mean new legislation and protecting this land, but I guess we will find out. But as of now, deforestation is increasing, and then it's increasing the likelihood that these earthworks are going to be revealed, which means that they're at a higher likelihood for destruction.

So, I wish this was a happier story, but I guess this isn't anything weird or strange, but it's just really fascinating just that there are these massive earthworks, and they haven't been seen in what, 10,000 12,000 years or something like that. It's wild, so. Anyway, on to our final story. [017:53] S1: Banksy's identity might become public knowledge soon, and you can actually now bet on who you think it is!

There are multiple We're going to talk about why his identity might be public in just a second. But there are multiple sports betting websites that are taking bids on what on who, rather, you think Banksy is, and some of the guesses are wild. I mean, obviously, a lot of them are for fun, but, I mean, they range from Morgan Freeman to Morgan Freeman to British painter David Hockney, so it's it's a wide array.

Full Colour Black Lawsuit and Betting on Banksy

So, there's a lawsuit. This is like an ongoing lawsuit. It's been going on for what, 5 years now?

There's a lawsuit against Banksy? There's a lawsuit against Banksy and his company Pest Control Limited by Andrew Gallagher, who is the owner of Full Colour Black, which is like a Banksy-inspired or Banksy-influenced greeting card company. This goes all the way back to what was it, 2018, I believe?

I don't know. This is just like It's been going on for fucking ever. I'm going to try to give you the super brief version of it, but basically, it's just been a whole series of legal back and forth between the two.

Gallagher's company, Full Colour Black, used one of Banksy's pieces from 2002. So, it was the chimp with the sandwich board that says, "Laugh now, but one day we'll be in charge." And he used that on a greeting card. Like, it's very, obviously, influenced by Banksy.

Banksy then went on to trademark the piece that he made in 2002, so it was like 16 years, which is it's interesting because Banksy's gotten really trademark-heavy with stuff lately, which he's like anti-trademark, which is like what he's I don't know, it's a very interesting, complicated sort of thing, so I am very curious to know who this actually is.

But anyway, so he went on to trademark the piece after this legal shit was starting to go on, or after he saw these greeting cards. So then, they went to court. The European Union's Intellectual Property Office actually sided with Full Colour Black, so Andrew Gallagher's greeting card company back in 2021, stating that the work was public and Banksy's anonymity delegitimized his trademark claims.

But, this was overturned with an appeal in November 2022, and Banksy was then awarded the trademark for the chimpanzee piece. So, kind of where the problem came in was that Banksy is anonymous, but then for some reason, they changed their mind, which you always wonder kind of what's going on a little bit. And there's a lot more to the legal story, but I don't know exactly where the future of this is going, so like what the next step in this is because details are kind of sparse right now, but, obviously, there will be an update, I am very sure of it.

Not very sure of it, there will be an update, so just get ready. What we do know now, though, is that there are three at least three separate sports betting websites where you can actually bet on who you think Banksy is, in addition to a myriad of other questions that they have, I guess there are only like three or four other questions.

Some of the names that are included, like I said, Morgan Freeman, David Hockney, there's also Damien Hirst, a whole slew of other like street artists, I think a couple musicians, also. Thierry Guetta, who is in what the fuck, Exit Through the Gift Shop? And then, also his alter ego, Mr.

Brainwash, is in there, too, so it's like, they think it's one of these two people. Donald Trump is also in there and even Tom Brady. So, if you think Tom Brady is Banksy, then you're fucked.

I don't know. I'm very much I'm curious to see how the odds stack up because as of right now, most people are actually thinking that it's Robert Del Naja, who is a Bristol artist who's long been rumored to be Banksy, a lot of people think that he is. Some people have even stated that they think it's going to be Andrew Gallagher, who is the guy that Banksy is been in this legal trouble with.

I'm doing a lot of hand motions right there. Which would be very funny. Like, could you fucking imagine?

That would be an ultimate speaking of conceptual art, that would be an ultimate conceptual art piece. It's like, I'm going to sue myself because of my That would be very philosophical, and I would be all about it because I find that interesting. Like I said, there are other questions, too, like, will Banksy appear in court, and then you can bet on yea or nay, is Robert Del Naja Banksy, and then, will Andrew Gallagher win.

So, if you'd like to take a shot at it, you definitely can. You can bet your little heart out. I actually have no idea where the bets start, so that is totally up to you, but I just thought that was very interesting.

So, anyhow, that'll do it for this episode of Buy Amara. Or maybe I'm Banksy. Ooh, no.

I wouldn't be able to do that. That would be actually really cool. Maybe I'll try something like that.

I don't know, we'll see. I'm just talking out of my ass. Anyway, thank you so much for listening to Buy Amara.

If you like this episode, please be sure to like it. If you want to subscribe, that's a weird ask. If you want to subscribe, do it.

Just kidding, I would very much appreciate it, but like genuinely no pressure, you do whatever you feel like in your little heart. That's it. So, have a good rest of your week.

I will see you next week, and I'm Amara Andrew. Never stop creating. I am Banksy.