Banksy has become a pop culture icon. His creations have appeared throughout England and at Paris Fashion Week and are emblazoned on T-shirts and stickers — some bootleg, others genuine. While Banksy is elusive, his presence is felt globally.
“Nobody ever listened to me until they didn’t know who I was,” Banksy writes in his 2005 book, “Wall and Piece.” It is this quote that epitomizes the artist better than any admirer could; his brand is built on anonymity, not to discount the ingenuity that comes with his eye for content that is subversive, shocking and impactful. The artist drew attention in 2018, when a painting of his sold for seven figures at a Sotheby’s auction and promptly tore itself to shreds.
Clearly, Banksy’s brand is built on undermining expectations of what an artist is supposed to be. He is a street artist by trade, who has since moved into other media through projects like GrossDomesticProduct. The website for Banksy’s unique “homewares brand” features products such as a brick with bits of leather handbag glued onto it and a genuine, hand-carved tombstone reading, “You have now reached your destination.”
The touring “Art of Banksy: Unauthorized Private Collection” exhibit, which opened Feb. 17 in Cambridge, MA, is the work of Starvox Exhibits and the brainchild of Steve Lazarides, a renowned collector and curator, as well as Banksy’s former spokesman and colleague.
One is compelled to question the nature of the exhibition itself — while the work featured is certainly legitimate, organizers did not receive the artist’s permission. In this way, “The Art of Banksy,” as an exhibit, is more Lazarides’ work than the artist’s. However, the average person can learn a lot from it, and for art enthusiasts, it is certainly a worthwhile experience to visit.
The exhibit’s most impressive quality is perhaps its scale, through which Banksy comes alive — he embodies whole movements through work with Greenpeace and various anti-war campaigns, commentaries on class and consumerism and dedication to anti-establishment motifs. The exhibit provides a history lesson, with placards providing context behind some of his most infamous pieces and outlining a career spanning from the 1990s to present day.
What can visitors expect? Upon entering the makeshift gallery space, they are greeted by a GDP Welcome Mat sewn with life vests from the Mediterranean, a collaboration with the organization Love Welcomes to support women in Greek detainment camps. Subsequent panels of text detail some of his most notable projects, such as the exhibition Barely Legal, which featured an elephant who blended seamlessly to match with the wallpaper of the exhibit — the physical manifestation of ‘the elephant in the room.’ And of course, there are the prints. The prints are perhaps the highlight of the show, as there are so many of them, all limited edition, as denoted by the number in the bottom corner. His work takes other forms too, including postcards, promotional posters and T-shirts.
“The Art of Banksy” features exclusive interviews with Banksy’s frequent collaborator and printer Ben Eine, who, beaming from flat screen TVs in a colorful jacket, is a sight to behold. Eine describes his first meeting with Banksy and sheds light on some of their early endeavors, providing an intimate look into the artist’s cloistered world. The icing on the cake are Banksy’s sketches, some of which would later become stenciled work; one, a portrait of Eine, was created as he and Eine sat in an airport during a mission to paint the Israel-West Bank barrier.
A dedicated fan may recognize items from the GDP shop, like a clock featuring a stenciled rat and a piece featuring Basquiat-styled crownson a Ferris wheel. It is evident that Banksy is well versed in pop culture, as he frequently references or outright appropriates the work of other artists in his own: One of Keith Haring’s dogs is incorporated into one print, while pop art and discounted Tesco soup cans point to Andy Warhol.
Though the physical materials leave much to the imagination, visitors get a sense of the performative elements involved in some projects. In 2006, Banksy and American musician Danger Mouse remixed and redesigned Paris Hilton’s debut album, leaving the recreations to be sold in record stores. Viewers at the exhibit can glimpse examples of these CDs enclosed by glass with the story transcribed alongside it and pictures of the album jacket pinned above.It functions as more than memorabilia; it’s a reminder of a distant time when physical albums were still commonplace, illustrating Banksy’s long-spanning career and the ways he continues to keep us excited.
As visitors file out of the velvety-dark gallery space, they pass lines of white text. Here, there is another quote from “Wall and Piece,” this one reading, “When the time comes to leave, just walk away quietly and don’t make any fuss.” Though leaving behind the creations of one of this generation’s biggest artistic inspirations imparted a sense of sadness upon exhibit viewers, upon leaving and seeing his words, it was easy to feel Banksy’s presence and be sated … at least momentarily.
