For that angsty high schooler in your life, Walmart is now selling a bunch of Banksy knockoffs. Most ironically, one print is titled, “Destroy Capitalism.” Another print of a work by street artist Eddie Colla that Walmart mistook for a Banksy featured the words, “If you want to achieve greatness, stop asking for permission.”
Taste the delicious schadenfreude:
Apparently, a third-party vendor sold the prints to Walmart, which in turn thought nothing of selling ripped off versions of the most famous anti-consumer street artist in the world. LAist has this statement from a Walmart rep:
These items are sold through our Marketplace third-party sellers Wayfair and PlumStruck. We’ve taken action to disable the one item in question by Callo [sic], and it will be unpublished later tonight around midnight PT.
We will also instruct Wayfair and Plumstruck to review their artwork to ensure the descriptions are accurate. They’ve provided great products and experiences to our customers and are contracted to comply with product copyright, safety, testing and certification requirements. We’ll work closely with them on the review.
In retaliation, Colla made a new print called “It’s Only Stealing If You Get Caught”:
Eddie Colla
Walmart has pulled both the “Banksy” prints and Colla’s prints from its website, saying they’re now out of stock.
UPDATE, 5:45 p.m.: I spoke with a representative for PlumStruck who said that they don’t actually produce the Banksy prints, but get them through yet another third-party supplier. When I asked the PlumStruck rep who their supplier was, she told me she “didn’t have the spelling” of their name, but that phonetically it sounds like “Kroto Inc” (a cursory Google search doesn’t turn much up). I’ve also asked the PR agency that represents Banksy to weigh in on the matter.
Correction, Dec. 3, 2013: This post originally misspelled Eddie Colla’s last name.
