Banksy drops t-shirt in support of defendants in the Colston case. 11 December 2021

In his own words:

“Next week the four people charged with pulling down Colston’s statue in Bristol are going on trial. I’ve made some souvenir shirts to mark the occasion. Available today 11th December from various outlets in the city (all proceeds to the defendants so they can go for a pint). One per person, £25 each plus VAT. Details on the Ujima Radio breakfast show from 9am.”

Photograph: @banksy on Instagram

A few hours later, the first Colston tees started popping up on eBay at £ 1,250 apiece. At 4 PM, Banksy’s PR woman Jo Brooks communicated: “Banksy t-shirt drops in Bristol have now sold out.”

Banksy donates Oscar Wilde stencil to Reading Council. 4 December 2021

The donation was made public on 4 December at an exhibition curated by Grayson Perry at Bristol Museum. Banksy contributed with the original stencil to the piece he did on the wall of the Reading GAOL prison in March 2021. The idea is that Reading Council now sells the stencil and uses the proceeds to turn the derelict prison into a permanent art centre. It’s expected to fetch up to GBP 10 mn in a private sale. In Banksy’s own words:

“I had very little interest in Reading until I was on a rail replacement bus service that went past the jail. It’s rare to find an uninterrupted 500m-long paintable surface slap bang in the middle of a town; I literally clambered over the passenger next to me to get a closer look. I promised myself I’d paint the wall even before I knew what it was. I’m passionate about it now, though. Oscar Wilde is the patron saint of smashing two contrasting ideas together to create magic. Converting the place that destroyed him into a refuge for art feels so perfect we have to do it.”

The Oscar Wilde stencil on display at Bristol Museum.

Banksy paints rat on the set of “The Outlaws”. 10 November 2021

“We can confirm that the artwork at the end of The Outlaws was an original Banksy, and that Christopher Walken painted over that artwork during the filming of this scene, ultimately destroying it,” a spokesperson for the BBC said. The show is written and directed by Bristolian comedian Stephen Merchant and is filmed in Bristol.

From BBC’s website:

“The Outlaws, written and directed by Stephen Merchant, stars Hollywood veteran Walken as one of a group of minor criminals refurbishing a building for their community service. The last episode sees his character uncover the Banksy rat and two spray cans behind some wooden boards, and ask his supervisor if he should paint over it. The probation officer is looking the other way so doesn’t realise it’s a Banksy and tells him all graffiti must be painted over, which he does.” https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-59236187

“¡¡Achoo!!” in Bristol. 10 December 2020.

There had been some buzz before the piece appeared on the Banksy website http://www.banksy.co.uk on 10 December around 17h. A few hours later, it was published on the official Instagram account @banksy.

Photographs: http://www.banksy.co.uk

The Guardian commented the artwork a few hours later:

The owners of a house in Bristol have apparently pulled out of the sale of the property after a Banksy piece appeared on the wall. On Thursday, the anonymous street artist confirmed he was behind the artwork showing an older woman sneezing out her false teeth, which has appeared on a semi-detached house in steep Vale Street, Totterdown. The stencil mural, Aachoo!!”, had been covered up before its unveiling on Thursday morning. It shows a woman in a headscarf holding a handkerchief but dropping her walking stick and handbag as she loses her dentures while sneezing.

Vale Street is England’s steepest residential street – its 22-degree slope used during annual Easter Sunday egg-rolling competitions. ITV News West Country spoke to the owners of the house, which had a sold sign up outside, and were told they have pulled out of the sale. They were due to exchange contracts next week but the artwork could see the value of their house rocket.

Nicholas Makin, whose mother Aileen owns the property, said people had been climbing over the house to get a better look at the new piece. He told ITV News West Country that his mother was distressed by the attention and they will take time to consider what to do next.

Fred Loosmore, 28, a furniture maker who until recently rented a room in the house, told the PA Media news agency he had put a clear covering over it for protection. “We wanted to come up because people will deface it, and luckily we’ve got a workshop and a massive piece of acrylic we’ve got left over,” he said.

“When we lived here so many people would come, especially on bikes and stuff because they were trying to do the challenge up the hills. It’s a great spot. The artwork is so nice. It’s so relevant, isn’t it?”

From the Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/dec/10/bansky-confirms-he-created-aachoo-artwork-in-bristol

Banksy’s idea for toppled statue of Bristol slave trader Edward Colston. 9 June 2020

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Photograph: Banksy’s Instagram

In his own words:

“What should we do with the empty plinth in the middle of Bristol? Here’s an idea that caters for both those who miss the Colston statue and those who don’t. We drag him out the water, put him back on the plinth, tie cable round his neck and commission some life size bronze statues of protestors in the act of pulling him down. Everyone happy. A famous day commemorated.”

A new piece in Bristol: Girl with a slingshot and a bursting balloon. 14 February 2020

Banksy went back to his origins in Barton Hill for Valentine’s Day. And the girl with the red balloon is also back, but this time with a slingshot in her hand.

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20200214 - SA - UK - Bristol - Detail of Girl w slingshot and balloon - Banksy instagram.png
Photograph: Banksy’s Instagram

A few days later, Banksy published the sketches:

In his own words:

“I’m kind of glad the piece in Barton Hill got vandalised. The initial sketch was a lot better..”

Banksy releases X-mas T-shirt. 11 December 2019

As announced on @banksygrossdomesticproduct on 11 December:

Photograph: banksygrossdomesticproduct/Instagram

The T-shirts are only available for sale at an event in Bristol on 12 December. All of the proceeds go to four different homeless charities.

Banksy has collaborated with several NGOs over the years. One of them is, of course, the @lovewelcomes project, which among other things, made the coveted “Welcome Mat”, sold at the Gross Domestic Product.

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“Love Welcomes is a creative social enterprise that helps refugee women begin to stitch their lives back together.”  (https://lovewelcomes.org/pages/our-story)

Plenty of meaningful Christmas gifts at http://lovewelcomes.org.

Banksy comments on Brexit fiasco. 28 March 2019

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Devolved Parliament was originally exhibited at the Banksy vs Bristol Museum in the summer of 2009. The show attracted over 300,000 visitors and was the most visited art exhibition in the UK that year.

The piece is one of Banksy’s largest oil paintings, 4 meters by 2.5 meters. The artwork will be displayed again at Bristol Museum for 6 months, from 28 March to 1 September 2019.

Dismaland. August – September 2015.

Dismaland was a temporary art project organised and financed by Banksy, constructed in the seaside resort town of Weston-super-Mare in Somerset, England. Prepared in secret, the pop-up exhibition at the Tropicana, a disused lido, was “a sinister twist on Disneyland” that opened during the weekend of 21 August 2015 and closed permanently on 27 September 2015, 36 days later. Banksy described it as a “family theme park unsuitable for children.” 4,000 tickets were available for purchase per day, priced at £3 each.

The show featured 58 artists of the 60 Banksy initially invited to participate. The list included Damien Hirst, Jenny Holzer, Jimmy Cauty, Tracy Emin, Jeff Gillette, David Shrigley, Paco Pomet, Escif, Peter Kennard and many more.

Banksy created approx. 15 new works for Dismaland:

Some of Banksy’s pieces at Dismaland. Photos: R.A.

The official Dismaland trailer:

Severnshed, Bristol. February 2000

After moving to London in late 1999, Banksy returned to Bristol in February 2000 to open his first regular exhibition at the restaurant Severnshed, behind the docks. The show was a mixture of stencil and acrylic on canvas. All pieces were priced under £ 1,000. The “Self-portrait” of Banksy, with a chimp head, sold for £ 198,000 at Bonhams in 2007. There are two other remarkable pieces – “Simple intelligence testing” and “Sharks”.

Photos: Melfleance, Flickr