Art fiends are flooding the streets, racing to find the daily installment of “Better Out Than In,” Banksy’s latest project. The anonymous graffiti street artist is creating quite a buzz, and for more than one reason.
If you don’t know Banksy, that is about to change. Best known for his Oscar-nominated documentary, “Exit Through the Giftshop,” and his mysterious and secretive nature, Banksy isn’t afraid to break the rules. Literally.
During the month of October, this English artist is “taking an artist’s residency on the streets of New York,” as he revealed on his personal website Oct. 1. Each day (or night for that matter), Banksy plans on exhibiting a new piece somewhere within the concrete jungle, never revealing what wall, door or street he is going to occupy next. New York residents are on what people are now referring to as “Banksy watch,” paying attention to social media to see if anyone has located his latest installment.
But that Instagram photo or tweet revealing where the day’s piece is and what it looks like may be the closest thing people have to seeing the original work. Banksy’s work is being defaced and taken down faster than you can say “graffiti is art.” 
Not only are fellow graffiti street artists tagging Banksy’s installments, but some shop and business owners are removing them and then selling them for profit, something the artist himself didn’t intend. Don’t you think if Banksy wanted to make a profit, his art would be hanging in the Museum of Modern Art and not in the slums of the city?
Banksy’s work is meant for public display, to be discovered when turning the corner or throwing out the trash in a back alley. The pieces are meant to be accessible to anyone. So should it be OK that his work is being carved out of concrete walls and then sold at auction for millions of dollars? I don’t think so.
I am not saying I support illegal activity, but his work is a gift to the city of New York. A piece of culture. An adventure to search for one of the world’s best street artist’s works. And the best part? It’s accessible to everyone.
To prove his work’s motive even more, on Oct. 12, Banksy decided to take a different approach. He set up a stand in the middle of Central Park advertising “spray art,” selling authentic signed canvases for only $60 apiece. The stand wasn’t manned by Banksy, but an elderly man. He revealed the next day on his website via video what he had done and shared that it took about four hours to make the first sale. The first sale occurred only after price negotiations and offering the pieces for 50 percent off. I think it is safe to say the few customers that did purchase hit the jackpot. Banksy doesn’t see art in dollar signs. This experiment is proof of that.
In an exclusive interview via email with the Village Voice, a free New York publication, Banksy says it himself, “There is absolutely no reason for doing this show at all. I know street art can feel increasingly like the marketing wing of an art career, so I wanted to make some art without the price tag attached. There’s no gallery show or book or film. It’s pointless. Which hopefully means something.”
And it does mean something. As the old, cliche line goes, “the best things in life are free.”
Genevieve Cossette can be reached at coss0411@stthomas.edu.