Banksy Walled Off Hotel in Palestine to sell new works by elusive artist
The Walled Off hotel Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters
By: Hannah Ellis-Petersen
Source: The Guardian
It’s the sort of merchandise you might find in any hotel gift shop: mugs emblazoned with slogans, T-shirts, prints of local beauty spots and novelty key rings. But this is not any ordinary holiday tat.
Banksy’s Walled Off hotel in the Palestinian territories will open a gift shop and sell new works by the elusive street artist for the first time in four years.
The works on sale include limited-edition crucifixes that have been fashioned into giant grappling hooks, and painted keyrings and ornaments resembling parts of the wall that separates Israel and Palestine.
The gift shop, which will open in the autumn, will be next to Banksy’s hotel, museum and protest gallery space that he opened in March overlooking the vast concrete stretch of wall, topped with barbed wire, that passes through Bethlehem.
This is the first time Banksy has put his works for sale since 2013, when he set up a small, anonymous pop-up stall in Central Park in New York where lucky passers-by could purchase original signed canvases for $60 (£38). They were a steal compared with the prices that original Banksy artworks now fetch at auction, and indeed some of the Central Park works have since sold for upwards of £120,000.
Most of the new works at the Walled Off gift shop will only be available in the West Bank shop, but a few are also going on sale in the hotel’s online store.
Those keen fans and collectors hoping to get their hands on a limited edition crucifix grappling hook will have to put in an order before they travel to the West Bank.
In true Banksy fashion, none of the new works are on sale for anywhere near the six-figure sums that collectors are willing to pay for signed Banksy work. Miniature reproductions of the hotel key fobs, which resemble segments of the concrete separation wall, will be available to buy in the shop for 90 shekels (£20), or 230 shekels for those who want it hand-painted.
Souvenir reproductions of parts of the separation wall are also on sale, some featuring Banksy’s popular Girl with Balloon image, and others daubed with more openly political statements such as “Free Palestine”.
Also likely to be in high demand is a Banksy art print that portrays the wall’s Israeli military watchtower as a fairground swing ride, set behind an actual chiseled piece of the wall, on sale for 575 shekels.
All of the items have been designed and created by Banksy himself and are likely to be hugely popular, since it is now rare for him to put his own works on sale, despite an enormous demand for them all over the world.
It also marks a continuation of the graffiti artist’s decade-long relationship with Bethlehem, since he came to the Palestinian city over a decade ago and graffitied the wall, making it a tourist destination in its own right. For the Israeli government the West Bank barrier, built in 2000 during the second intifada, is seen as a vital security wall to protect Israel from terrorist attacks. Palestinians, however, regard it as a symbol of their oppression and racial segregation.
The wall is now covered in political art and statements from street artists and protesters from all over the world, including a recent illustration of Donald Trump hugging the watchtower and another of the US president vowing to build the West Bank wall “a brother” – a reference to his election pledge to build a wall along the Mexican border.
The Walled Off hotel, which the artist described as having “the worst view of any hotel in the world”, exists both as a living art institution but also an informative museum space that explains the turbulent history of the region. It is also a gallery showcasing Palestinian artists, who are often restricted from travelling and exhibiting their work in Israel and abroad. Banksy’s hope for the hotel was that it would draw a new type of tourism to the area and generate much-needed jobs. Rooms start at $60 (£46) and go up to $965 for the presidential suite.
It is illegal for Israelis to enter the West Bank, and while the area where the hotel sits in Bethlehem is officially under Israeli control, it still requires a journey through Palestinian territories to get there.
In October, as well as the opening of the gift shop, the Walled Off hotel will also be running package holidays for the first time. The “vandals’ retreat” will give people the chance to visit the Bethlehem hotel in the presence of a famous graffiti artist, such as Australian street artist Lush, and guests will be taken on excursions to paint the wall themselves.
A hotel spokesperson said: “It’s a bit like going on a cruise with a celebrity, but with a lot more swearing.” But with his own appearance still shrouded in mystery, Banksy himself is unlikely to be among the package holiday guest vandals.