some sort of Banksy retrospective
In the first years of the decade, besides the UK and US, Banksy went to Barcelona, Berlin, Vienna, Bergen, Copenhagen, Tokyo, Paris, and Palestine, where he painted the first stencilled version of the iconic Love is in the Air behind a gas station in Bethlehem.
The first exhibition in London took place in a railway underpass on Rivington Street. In Banksy’s own words:
“We came out of a pub one night arguing about how easy it would be to hold an exhibition in London without asking anyone permission. As we walked through a tunnel in Shoreditch someone said – You’re wasting your time, why would you want to paint pictures in a dump like this?”
The exhibition was divided into five sections. This is the main section:
The programme for the first exhibition in London:
As explained in the program above, all images were available for purchase as stencilled canvases through an ingenious mail order system. Every motive had a number—see the photo below. The interested buyer had to send an email to buyabanksy@hotmail.com and indicate which work they wanted to buy. There were 25 motives available. The canvases came in three sizes: small, £99.99; medium, £159.99; and large, £199.99, each in an edition of 25. The canvases were delivered to the buyer after three weeks.
After moving to London in late 1999, Banksy returned to Bristol in February 2000 to open his first regular indoor exhibition at the restaurant Severnshed on The Grove, right behind the docks. Nowadays, the restaurant has changed its name to the Harbour House. The show was a mixture of stencils and acrylic on canvas. There were several remarkable pieces: Simple Intelligence Testing, Sharks, and You Told That Joke Twice.
The prices ranged from £130 to £1,750. All of the pieces were sold.
BBC Bristol did an interview with Banksy at the exhibition. You can listen to it here:
Banksy unofficial 