Banksy at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art. Los Angeles, 3 September 2026

When the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art opens in Los Angeles on September 22, its fifth-floor mural gallery will bring together an unlikely trio: Banksy, Diego Rivera and Judy Baca. The connecting idea is public space as a stage for narrative art.

The grouping is curatorial rather than collaborative. Rivera died in 1957, and the works shown are reproductions of his public murals, not originals. Baca is represented largely through an extensive video installation of her landmark The Great Wall of Los Angeles, drawn from an archive acquired by the museum. Senior curator Ryan Linkof has framed the gallery as an exploration of how artists use public space to tell politically charged stories, a context in which Banksy’s stencil-based work sits naturally alongside Rivera’s and Baca’s.

Public museums have rarely shown Banksy’s work. The main exceptions are Bristol Museum in 2009 and Cut & Run at GOMA in Glasgow in 2023, both organised by Banksy himself. The privately owned MOCO Museum in Amsterdam has hosted a permanent Banksy exhibition of certified studio works sourced from private collectors, drawing steady crowds since 2016.

But this permanent exhibition at Lucas Museum is next level. Commissioned by George Lucas, Banksy has recreated some of his best-known murals, including Girl with Balloon, Love is in the Air, No Ball Games, Crayon Foreclosure, and Go Flock Yourself – Paris version. The museum also has the maquette of the flag statue he unveiled in London this past May. According to a museum spokesperson, Banksy did not simply lend the work; “he worked with the museum on the installation himself”.

For more information: https://lucasmuseum.org and @lucasmuseum