Banksy graffiti offered at US auction: Auction house

LOS ANGELES, California - Agence France-Presse

This undated publicity photo released by Julien's Auctions shows the Banksy graffiti mural entitled, "Flower Girl," which formerly occupied a gas station in Los Angeles. AP Photo

Graffiti painted on a gas station wall in Hollywood by British street artist Banksy will be put up for sale at auction in Beverly Hills, Julien's auction house said Tuesday.
 
Titled "Flower Girl," the stencil in black aerosol paint represents a young girl with a basket standing before an immense plant whose flower has been replaced by a surveillance camera with a rat tail -- a recurrent motif in Banksy's art.
 
Measuring 2.7 meters by 2.4 meters, the graffiti was made in 2008 on a service station's white brick wall.
 
It will be sold at auction on December 5 in Beverly Hills, the auction house said.
 
"This rare opportunity to own one of Banksy's early large-scale graffiti murals will mark the first time a work of public street art by Banksy has been offered at auction in America," it said in a statement.
 
Another Banksy graffiti, "Slave Labour," was offered at auction in Miami but was withdrawn at the last minute after a controversy arose over pulling down the wall in London on which it was painted.
 
The graffiti was finally sold privately in June for more than $1.1 million dollars by the owner of the wall where the mural was discovered.
 
Banksy, who strenuously conceals his true identity, is from Bristol in southwestern England.
 
His work mixes humor and subversiveness: his artwork appeared on the walls of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and on a wall in the West Bank separating Israelis and Palestinians.