some sort of Banksy retrospective
After Banksy’s tour of the US following the premiere and promotion of Exit Through the Gift Shop, he was back in the UK for the summer and fall of 2010. He also visited Glastonbury, where he stencilled the crazy hippies and filmed a prank with Prince Charles.
Banksy revisited the Glastonbury Festival where he did the ‘Aggresive Hippies* and also a memorable prank with Prince Charles.
The official clip of the prank with Prince Charles at Glastonbury:
Following the premiere and the promotion of Exit Through the Gift Shop, more than 20 Banksy stencils appeared on walls around the USA and Canada.
Photos: http://www.banksy.co.uk
The film premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival on 24 January 2010 and was later nominated for the Oscars and the BAFTAs for Best Documentary Feature. The synopsis was described in the following way on the official website:
“This is the inside story of Street Art – a brutal and revealing account of what happens when fame, money and vandalism collide. Exit Through the Gift Shop follows an eccentric shop-keeper turned amateur film-maker as he attempts to capture many of the world’s most infamous vandals on camera, only to have a British stencil artist named Banksy turn the camcorder back on its owner with wildly unexpected results. One of the most provocative films about art ever made, Exit Through the Gift Shop is a fascinating study of low-level criminality, comradeship and incompetence. By turns shocking, hilarious and absurd, this is an enthralling modern-day fairytale… with bolt cutters.”
Screenshots from http://www.banksyfilm.com (now defunct), which appeared as a submenu on http://www.banksy.co.uk:
It’s probably one of Banksy’s best shows ever and one of the most visited art exhibitions in the UK.
From Bristol Museum’s website:
“In the summer of 2009 Bristol Museum & Art Gallery was taken over by an extraordinary exhibition of works by the infamous Bristol artist Banksy. Overnight the museum was transformed into a menagerie of Unnatural History – fishfingers swimming in a gold-fish bowl, hot-dogs and chicken nuggets. Paintings were placed in amongst the historic collections of Old Masters, sculptures and other pieces dotted around throughout the museum displays. The main entrance was transformed into a sculpture hall, accompanied by a burnt out ice-cream van that pumped out an eerie sound-track of warped tunes, whilst a giant ice-cream melted on its roof.
Before long, people queued around the block to get into the exhibition, some as long as seven hours just to be part of this unique phenomenon. Over 100 works by the artist – most of which had not been shown before – were displayed.
Banksy left one sculpture behind. Pictured above is the Angel Bust – or the paint-pot angel which is currently on display at the museum. He also gave another work to the museum of a sculpture of Jerusalem, which was made by another artist called Tawfiq Salsaa – you can see it in our online collection.”
Source: Bristol Museum
At least seven pieces in the UK in 2009, and the start of the King Robbo vs. Banksy feud.
Of historical interest is the feud between Robbo and Banksy. The feud started in 2009 when Banksy painted over one of King Robbo’s tags in Camden. The initial tag was sprayed in 1985 underneath the British Transport Police quarters. The feud continued until King Robbo had a serious accident in 2011, leaving him in a vegetative state until he died in 2014. His real name was John Robertson. The following sequence is a tribute to Robbo, as it appeared on Banksy’s website in 2012:
Screenshots: http://www.banksy.co.uk
Banksy’s first and hopefully not the last incursion on the African continent resulted in at least six pieces. Here are five:
Banksy opened his first exhibition in New York, The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill, featuring mainly animatronics. Almost all of the content was used the following year in the Banksy vs. Bristol Museum exhibition.
The official Village Pet Store website is still up and running: http://thevillagepetstoreandcharcoalgrill.com/menu.html:
Screenshots: http://thevillagepetstoreandcharcoalgrill.com/menu.html
In Banksy’s own words:
“New Yorkers don’t care about art, they care about pets. So I’m exhibiting them instead. I wanted to make art that questioned our relationship with animals and the ethics and sustainability of factory farming, but it ended up as chicken nuggets singing. I took all the money I made exploiting an animal in my last show and used it to fund a new show about the exploitation of animals. If its art and you can see it from the street, I guess it could still be considered street art.”
Photos: Getty images
Vernisage.tv published an amazing video of the exhibition on youtube:
Apart from the stencils in New Orleans, a few more pieces were documented across the US in 2008. At least two in the Los Angeles area and a few giant rats on billboards in New York before the Village Pet Store exhibition in October 2008.
Besides the Cans Festival in May, there are only a few, possibly three, documented street art pieces in the UK for 2008.
As reported by Natalie Hanman in the Guardian on 1 September 2008:
Street artist Banksy has taken his trade to the streets of New Orleans, as the city remembers those whose lives were destroyed by hurricane Katrina three years ago – and the country braves itself for another storm in hurricane Gustav, which hit the US Gulf coast this morning.
The graffiti artist’s latest creations of more than a dozen murals – which include depictions of a young boy flying a fridge like a kite and Abraham Lincoln as a homeless man – adorn buildings around the city, according to the New York Times.
A statement released by Banksy reveals that they were created in response to Fred Radtke aka the “Grey Ghost”, an anti-graffiti campaigner who uses grey paint to cover up street art. The statement also said: “Three years after Katrina I wanted to make a statement about the state of the cleanup operation.”
From: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/sep/01/graffiti
Photos: http://www.banksy.co.uk, http://www.nola.com, http://www.uk.complex.com
Banksy unofficial 