Why, Banksy wonders, has he never been invited to the Venice Biennale? Perhaps because they knew he’d do something just like this, invited or not. The elusive British street artist set up an unauthorized stall in what appears to be the city’s famous Piazza San Marco, displaying a nine-panel oil painting of a cruise ship. The piece references the chronic problem of overcrowding in Venice due to tourist activity, leading many residents to call for a ban on cruise ships.

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Posting a video of the kiosk on Instagram (which is essentially the artist’s way of verifying that a work is his), Banksy reveals that he was ultimately told to leave due to lack of a permit.

The artist also claimed responsibility for a new mural that popped up on the wall of a private home along the canal, showing a migrant child holding a pink flare. That piece is likely a response to Italy’s recent actions against migrants, which have led to the closure of ports. Italian forces are said to have ignored ships full of refugees, allowing them to capsize with hundreds of people on board. At least 250 drowned.

Street artist Ron English paid over $730K for a work of art by Banksy – and he plans to paint over it. It might sound like some kind of silly high-profile artist feud, but English harbors no animosity toward the infamously anonymous creator of ‘Slave Labour,’ the mural he just bought at auction. He just doesn’t want anyone else to have it.

The mural, which depicts a small child on his knees with a sewing machine producing a string of Union Jack bunting, was originally painted onto the side of a London store in protest of sweatshop souvenirs before the 2012 Olympics. The mural disappeared in 2013, to the anger of local residents, and later resurfaced to be sold at auction for $1.1 million. It’s all part of an ongoing scheme in which building owners have Banksy works chiseled off their property and sold at auction without the artist’s consent.

Ron English, an American contemporary artist known for vivid, often satirical works with a comic book aesthetic, is sick of it.

“My idea for this painting is to whitewash it for my good pal Banksy, I only wish I could’ve spent more money for it,” English told a crowd of reporters in Los Angeles. “I’m going to paint it white again, I’m done. This is a blow for street art. It shouldn’t be bought and sold. I’m going to paint over it and just include it in one of the walls in my house. We’re tired of people stealing our stuff off the streets and re-selling it so I’m just going to buy everything I can get my hands on and whitewash it.”

But, English notes, while he might be crazy, he’s not stupid. He plans to sell the whitewashed painting for a million dollars – and he’ll probably get it.

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In October, Banksy’s work Girl with Balloon literally self-destructed the moment it was sold at auction for more than £1 million at Sotheby’s in front of an astonished crowd.

Learn more at WebUrbanist’s Banksy archive.

In a stunt that should surprise absolutely no one who knows anything about Banksy, the elusive street artist’s iconic work Girl with Balloon literally self-destructed the moment it was sold at auction for more than £1 million on Friday. “It appears we just got Banksy-ed,” said a Sotheby’s official afterward. Yep, it appears you did.

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The framed work, consisting of spray paint and acrylic on canvas, was the last piece to go up for sale that evening in London. The typical controlled chaos of the auction house was punctuated by the clap of the auctioneer’s gavel, and at that very second, the work slipped through its frame in shreds. Almost nobody noticed at first, but gasps from the crowd alerted the room to the situation.

Banksy himself released a video on Instagram that showed him building the shredder into the painting’s frame, “in case it ever sold at auction.” He deleted it soon afterward, but it had already circulated on the internet. The YouTube clip above edits this clip side-by-side with a video capturing the moment of the big reveal.

Ironically, the artwork might be worth even more now than it was at the moment it sold thanks to all the attention it got, but it seems likely that Banksy expected as much, and it’s part of the overall point. A perpetual critic of the commercialization of his own work, Banksy is no stranger to trolling the public. Even when he turns a profit from the sales, he often does so while essentially ridiculing the purchaser.

Learn more at WebUrbanist’s Banksy archive.

In the early 2000s, Banksy famously hung one of his own works at London’s famous Tate Britain museum, and now, 15 years later, a Toronto artist has pulled off a similar guerrilla trick, this time targeting an exhibition of Banksy’s own work in Canada.

Tharanga Ramanayake‘s piece involves a Banksy-worthy critique of the art world, objecting to admission fees charged to see street art, which is typically public and accessible by nature.

The meta-commentary comes through in layers, with art on walls lining a street within the canvas of the piece itself. Street art, the artist believes, should be free, which his piece Free-For-All highlights.

“Theft,” reads the plaque, “is bringing street art inside and then charging an admission fee.” Ramanayake’s art used a sketch of Trolley Hunters, a Banksy work that was stolen last month before the exhibit opened to the public.

The new art was hung alongside a print of Rage, The Flower Thrower, one of Banky’s most famous works. It was taken down after security was alerted, but no charges were pursued and the artwork was returned to its creator. The exhibitors also noted that the art on the walls wasn’t really street art, in their view, but prints of public pieces, which would be sold in part to fund further public installations.

Located just a few hundred meters from the checkpoint to Jerusalem and a mile from the centre of Bethlehem, the Walled-Off Hotel (a play on Waldorf) project features works of art and artistically designed rooms — it serves as a habitable way to raise funds and awareness, too.

Now, the hotel has released a set of works depicting the West Bank barrier and other regional art pieces by Banksy, rendered in miniature and only available to those who visit (most are not available online).

Many of these are framed as works of “anticipatory art,” designed to foreshadow a better future of trust and interconnection in the region.

“The gift shop is situated towards the back of the hotel and sells items created exclusively for the Walled Off by Banksy. It should not be confused with the ‘Banksy Shop’ next door – which has nothing to do with Banksy at all,” note the proprietors. “All profits from sales go towards sustaining the hotel and social projects.”

With the fresh move by the Trump White House of the U.S. embassy, travelers are assured they will be safe, but also warned to use caution and pay attention to current events before traveling. And, of course: exit through the gift shop.