Who else but Banksy could have come up with the idea to train more than a hundred stewards to behave as rudely as possible at his own art show? Now we know how it was done:
As reported by BBC on 30 December:
“The secretive artist normally lets his pictures do the talking but wrote his tribute to Allen for BBC Radio 4 obituary programme Last Word. Allen, one of the founders of the alternative comedy movement in the 1970s, died at the start of December. Banksy enlisted him to train the surly stewards at his dystopian theme park in Weston-super-Mare in 2015.
“Dismaland was organised in strict secrecy so in order to find the hundred or so stewards we needed, we advertised in the local paper for ‘runners and extras’ for a film shoot,” Banksy recalled in his statement.
“I was concerned that when these young people discovered they weren’t on a film set and in fact had to interact with the public all day, they might get a bit freaked out. So I asked Tony to come and host a few basic confidence-building workshops and hone their stewarding skills. It was essentially a pretty dry corporate gig for him.
“However Tony Allen was a born troublemaker. He took one look at the name of the event and for three days in the conference hall of a nearby hotel he trained the teenagers in his own image.
“He’d been left alone to get on with it, so come opening day we had no idea what was about to hit us. Tony delivered the most surly and incompetent employees in the history of hospitality.
“They were truly dismal, incapable or unwilling to even point out the fire exits. They ignored any requests for information, they popped the balloons they were meant to be selling, they threw people’s change on the floor, they even went up to random members of the public and licked their ice creams.
“Tony had instilled in them they should never break character, even when speaking to management. Our head of production lost their mind and threatened to quit. The council and police were not impressed and called a meeting.
“But by the end of the first day it was clear the stewards were a massive hit. They became by far the most talked about part of the show, overshadowing six months of my hard work and the efforts of 50 invited international artists.
“I had to hand it to him, Tony Allen really knew how to take the Mickey.”
The deliberately gloomy Dismaland, which featured works by Banksy and other artists he picked, ran in a former open-air swimming baths in the Somerset seaside town for five weeks.”
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 from 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 approximately 15 new works for Dismaland:
Grim Reaper at Dismaland
Some of Banksy’s pieces at Dismaland. Photos: R.A.
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The official Dismaland trailer:
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The Dismaland Programme
Maybe the best way to get an understanding of Dismaland without having been there is through the official programme. You can download it here:
List of artists at Dismaland in order of appearance in the programme:
Bill Barminski. California, 1962. ‘The cardboard security room’
Ben Long. UK, 1978. ‘The cornice ice cream’
Stephen Powers. USA, 1968.
Jenny Holzer. Ohio, 1950.
Caitlin Cherry. Chicago, 1987.
Caroline McCarthy. Ireland, 1971.
Banksy. UK, 197?
Dietrich Wegner. Australia. ‘The mushroom cloud’ and the ‘Baby in the vending machine’
Andreas Hykade. Germany, 1968.
James Joyce. UK.
Brock Davis. USA. The Broccoli painting
Josh Keyes. USA, 1969. ‘The great white shark’
Leigh Mulley. UK. Balloons
Jani Leinonen. Finland, 1978. ‘Modified cereal boxes’
Barry Reigate. UK, 1971.
Jeff Gilette. California, 1979. Conceptual inspiration for Dismaland.
Lee Madgwick. UK. The rural solitary house with Internet access
Paco Pomet. Spain, 1970. ‘Once upon a time’, ‘Internacional’ and ‘Bloody Trees’
Laura Lancaster. UK, 1979.
Zaria Forman. USA, 1982.
Jessica Harrison. UK, 1982. Small porcelain figures.
Kate MacDowell. USA. The hare wearing a gasmask
Maskull Laserre. Canada, 1978. Janus – the wooden carousel horse.
Severija Inčirauskaitė. Lithuania, 1977.
Amir Schiby. Israel. The four palestininan boys in Gaza.
Sami Musa. Palestina.
Neta Harari Navon. Israel, 1970.
Huda Beydoun. Saudi Arabia, 1988.
ESCIF. Spain, 1980.
LU$H. Australia
Axel Void (Alejandro Hugo Dorda Mevs). USA.
Jimmy Cauty. UK, 1956. ADP – the miniature urban landscape
Tim Hunkin & Andy Plant. UK. ‘The Astronauts Caravan’
Block 9. UK. ‘The Fairytale Castle’
David Shrigley. UK. The ‘I am an imbecille’ balloons
Scott Hove. USA.
Ronit Baranga. Israel.
Dorcas Casey. UK. The horses in the Cinderella castle
Polly Morgan. UK. Taxidermist animals
Damien Hirst. UK, 1965. ‘the Unicorn’
Mike Ross. USA. ‘Big Rig Jig’
Michael Beitz. USA.
Peter Kennard & Cat Phillips. The David Cameron Billboard
Wasted Rita. Portugal, 1978. Written messages on big Post-Its.
Paul Insect & Bäst. UK and USA.
Greg Haberny. USA, 1975.
Nettie Wakefield. UK, 1987.
Darren Cullen. UK, 1983. The Pocket Money Loan installation
Tinsel Edwards, UK
Ed Hall, UK. The banners
Dr Gavin Grindon. UK. Museum of Cruel Objects
Joanna Pollonais, Canada.
Suliman Mansour. Palestina.
Tammam Azzam. Syria, 1980.
Shadi Al Zaqzouq. Libya, 1989.
El Teneen. Egypt
Mana Neyestani. Iran.
Fares Cachoux. Syria.
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Dismaland Reviews
The Guardian published a surprisingly negative review of Dismaland on 21 August 2015:
In Dismaland, Banksy has created something truly depressing
By Jonathan Jones
The artist’s ‘Bemusement Park’ claims to be making you think, but as an actual experience it is thin, threadbare and, to be honest, quite boring
This place is unreal. A dilapidated pub, desperate-looking big wheel and grim promenade perfectly express the melancholy of the British seaside. But that’s just Weston-super-Mare on a cloudy morning. Dismaland is even stranger. Or so I hope, as I join the very first visitors to Banksy’s “Bemusement Park” waiting to see what lies behind a miserably gothic sign on the battered facade of a decaying lido.
People have been waiting for hours in a queue that stretches far along the prom. A thousand free tickets have been given away to Weston-super-Mare residents for this first public day. All ages and subcultures, from punks to a man dressed entirely in union jacks, are waiting to have their bags searched.
There are two layers of security as we pour in: real and fake. The fake security is one of the funniest moments of the day. Created by Californian artist Bill Barminski, it consists of cardboard X-ray machines and tables of cardboard objects supposedly taken from visitors. But this joke about modern security systems does not change the fact that before you enter Dismaland you do actually get your bag thoroughly inspected by very real security guards who asked one visitor if he had any knives or, get this, spray cans. All graffiti in Dismaland is official graffiti.
You can see why Banksy needs to control spontaneous art. Already the streets between the railway station and his attraction have been enlivened by rival street artists. Banksy. He’s so famous that Weston-super-Mare’s lucky golden ticket holders rush into the park already taking pictures, and I too am caught up in the thrill. This has been in the Daily Mail and everything, it’s got to be special.
Greeters – or rather, sulkers – wear Mickey Mouse ears and T-shirts that say DISMAL. Instead of being forced to smile all day they have to grimace all day. Some are so good at it they appear genuinely pissed off. It’s infectious, for me at least.
As cameraphones snap everything in sight, the gloom of the British seaside at its most dilapidated and moribund wells up in me. Memories of amusement arcades in Rhyl. Banksy has created something truly depressing. There at the heart of Dismaland is the fairytale castle, ruinous and rancid. The lake around it has a fountain that is a police water cannon. But an empty feeling is starting to hollow me out. Where’s the fun I was promised? Well, I wasn’t promised any fun, just dismalness. But surely not this dismal.
Inside the festering wreck of a fairytale castle, Cinderella’s coach has crashed. Flash bulbs create indoor lightning as paparazzi photograph her. Shock! It’s like the death of Diana. But there’s no emotion. The lifesize tableau, by Banksy himself, is just one big smirk. Wait. He’s built a castle. He leads us into it … For this? It’s such a trite, simplistic joke.
Dismaland is not all crap jokey installations, however. There are political one-liners here as well as artistic ones. People are queuing up to go inside a caravan with intense displays about the evil of our fascist police state. There is also a huge model of said fascist police state, with tiny police cars everywhere, blue lights flashing right across a diorama of a city at night.
The irony of the security on the way into Dismaland is underlined by all the references to CCTV and the wicked security establishment that pervade it. Yet that obvious double standard goes much deeper. Dismaland is a kind of consummation, for me, of all that is false about Banksy. It claims to be “making you think” and above all to be defying the consumer society, the leisure society, the commodification of the spectacle. Disneyland packages dreams, Dismaland is a blast of reality. But it is just a media phenomenon, something that looks much better in photos than it feels to be here. “Being here” is itself just a way of touching the magic of Banksy’s celebrity – that’s why everyone is taking pictures. This is somewhere to come to say you went. As an actual experience it is thin and threadbare, and I found, to be honest, quite boring.
I felt I was participating in a charade where everyone has to pretend this is a better joke than it is. In reality the crazy fairgrounds and dance tents at rock festivals are far more subversive – because they are joyous.
Perhaps you need intoxicants to enjoy Dismaland, and I was there at 11 in the morning. But its failure to create joy is self-defeating. Funfairs really are strange, wild places, as film-makers have known since Tod Browning made Freaks and rock music has known since the Doors recorded Strange Days. But in Dismaland, the rather well established idea that fairs are bizarre is not taken anywhere new or interesting.
As a news story, a media sensation, it works wonderfully – but up close, this is a Potemkin theme park. It’s not an experience, just a pasteboard substitute for one. Indeed, it is a mere art exhibition. Dismaland does not offer the energy and danger that real theme parks do. Instead, it brings together a lot of bad art by the seaside.
Banksy shows a painting of a mother and child about to be overwhelmed by a tsunami. The grotesquely clumsy crudeness of his painting technique up close, and without any excuse that he did it quickly to evade the cops, is embarrassing. But nastiest of all is the work’s peculiar lack of human feeling. We are – apparently – meant to think it’s funny that the wave is about to kill these beachgoers. They have lots of commodities, you see – sun cream and stuff. All the detritus of consumer capitalism. See the wave of the future crush them! This heartless allegory is worthy of Maoist propaganda. As art it is sterile and dead.
Banksy does better with a figure of Death riding a dodgem. This would be a lot of fun if you could go on the dodgems and try to dodge death. Sadly you just have to watch. It elicits a half laugh.
At least a visit to Dismaland is a real, sustained chance to assess Banksy as an artist. His one-dimensional jokes and polemics lack any poetic feeling. Devoid of ambiguity or mystery, everything he has created here is inert and unengaging. Cinderalla dies and no one gives a toss. What a good joke about our time, that one of the most famous critics of the way we live now is nothing more than a media-savvy cultural entrepreneur.
Banksy’s taste in other artists is no more insightful. Most of the artists he’s selected for this seaside outing are as one-dimensional as his own visions.
Only one image held me. It has been a long time since I was thrilled to see a Damien Hirst but among all the half-baked efforts here, Hirst’s gold-framed vitrine containing a unicorn has a true strangeness. It is not preachy or self righteous. Nor is its fascination easily explained. It is a real fairground attraction, freakish and bizarre. Dismaland needs a few more unicorns. So does Weston-super-Mare. So do we all.
Banksy unofficial 