Sticky Fingers BCN

A few days after coming back from Vienna, I went to Bristol to see Banksy versus Bristol Museum. This is one of the best exhibitions I have been to see and was definitely worth the trip there.

Street artist Banksy converts breaking the rules into an art form. Last October 2008, the director of Bristol Museum, Kate Brindley, was contacted by Banksy’s agents, with the idea to offer up a “remix” of the museum’s collection by adding up to 100 pieces of original work. Banksy wanted to give something back to the city where he grew up and where his first art stencils appeared. Brindley was sworn to secrecy and just four of the museum staff actually knew about the exhibition plans. When the moment arrived to prepare the museum’s intervention, the rest of staff were given a few days off with the excuse that a filming crew were setting up inside. The artist himself was involved in the preparations but no one was aware of who he was among the various crew members. The secret was well guarded even from the Bristol City Council officials until the very Friday before the inauguration. Banksy has been quoted as saying: “This is the first show I’ve ever done where taxpayers’ money is being used to hang my pictures up rather than to scrape them off”.

The doors opened on Saturday June 13th with a record-breaking turnout. The day I went to see Banksy’s havoc in the Bristol Museum, there was a 4-hour queue. Luckily I was able to side step that long line and enter immediately. The great thing is to be able to take photos of everything, (Banksy doesn’t believe in copyright). The not-so-great thing: too many people. Grannies and children, whole families, Japanese tourists with enormous cameras.

Once past the main doors, a grand space opens up in the form of a main hall, filled with a veritable feast for the eyes. The information point is housed inside a life-size, burnt-out, graffitied ice cream van. Various Roman statues have received the Banksy treatment. A lion sits tall and proud, with blood splashed across his muzzle, a circus whip in his mouth and ringmaster’s jacket lying on the floor.

Off to one side, an elongated room is filled with strictly Banksy pieces of manipulated artwork. Paintings that upon inspection, reveal surprising situations. Props fixed to the artwork to enhance a comic sensation. Some of the pieces are obvious and fun; others inspire contemplation and are a direct criticism of the world we live in and how the social structure and hierarchy are organized.

After viewing these original pieces of work, the fun really begins. Placed among the various artifacts, statues, paintings, ceramics, etc, which comprise the museum’s permanent displays, there are objects which have been purposely added by the artist. It’s like where´s Wally but with Banksy pieces.

To finish off, in the secondary hall, there are various animatronic installations. From a rabbit that actually files her nails, to a cheetah made out of a spotted fur coat which lazily swings its tail, very spine-chilling.

Some pieces are open to interpretation; others are more didactic and “in-your-face”. Cheeky and renegade, sophisticated at times, Banksy forces us to question the world around us and the events that we see through the television news, newspapers and in our daily lives. Unfortunately, the exhibition closed on the 31st of August, probably leaving many people with the desire to have seen it. At least Bristol has passed a law that street graffiti must have a public referendum to decide whether it should be covered over or left in its place.  The picture of the graffiti in question is hung on the official city website and people can vote whether they want it to stay or to be covered up. In this way, much of Banksy’s street art has been saved and is intact, waiting to surprise another wave of visitors.

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art installations, banksy, bristol, bristol museum, graffiti, interventions, museum, stencils, Street art

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