I agree, Banksy was drawing attention to how silly and celebrity-driven the art world has become. People don’t buy or value art based on the quality of the art itself so much as the prestige of who created it. At the end of the day, why does it matter if the piece you hang on the wall was created by a famous artist or not? None of that alters its appearance. Some famous musicians have done similar stunts by posing as anonymous street performers just to see if people still appreciate their music.
This Banksy bit is a bit like the climax of Exit Through the Gift Shop in reverse. In that documentary, Banksy and his compatriots showed the world how easily they could make an instant celebrity out of a mediocre and derivative artist simply through association with their own celebrity.
