Category: Exhibitions

2004, Exhibitions, UK

Santa’s Ghetto 04. London, December 2004

by R.A.

The 2004 Santa’s Ghetto was located in a run-down former porn shop on 121 Charing Cross Road, next to Foyles bookshop in Central London. The pop-up art exhibition opened daily from 10am to 8pm until Christmas Eve.

It contained intriguing new works from all of the artists on Pictures of Walls. Banksy participated with a few modified oils and the first version of Napalm. The counterfeit ten-pound notes featuring Lady Di, also referred to as the Di-Faced tenners, saw the light.

The last of the small black books, Cut It Out, was launched at the exhibition.

Photos: http://www.artofthestate.co.uk, Andipa catalogue

Of particular interest were the modified oil paintings, some of which reappeared the following year at the Crude Oils exhibition. Here, three examples in clockwise order: Silent Night, Congestion Charging, and Countryside CCTV.

Photos: Bonhams and Christies

List of participants – Santa’s Ghetto 04:

2003, Exhibitions, UK

Santa’s Ghetto 03, London. December 2003

by R.A.

Santa’s Ghetto 2003 opened on 2 December in an abandoned store just off Carnaby Street in London. It contained work by Banksy, Jamie Hewlett, Mode 2, and 3D, among others. Described by Pictures on Walls as a “festive extravaganza of cheap art and related novelty goods from lowbrow artists and trained vandals”. The launch party attracted Damon Albarn of Blur, and star chef Jamie Oliver.

Photos: Wembley Pairs, Flickr

Multiple canvases

Santa’s Ghetto was a selling exhibition. Banksy sold a lot of canvases, mostly stencilled motifs in editions of 25, so-called ‘multiple canvases’, among them the iconic Girl with Balloon, also in an edition of 25. Some of the canvases that Banksy sold for £ 250 in 2003 now collect over a million pounds on the secondary market.

A few of the multiples sold at Santa’s Ghetto 2003:

Photos: Sotheby’s and Bonhams

2003, Exhibitions, UK

Turf War, London. July 2003

by R.A.

The show opened on 18 July and lasted for three days. Turf War featured a wide range of genres, techniques, and styles. It marked the beginning of a string of brilliant exhibitions with an approximate two-year interval: Turf War in 2003, Crude Oils in 2005, Barely Legal in 2006, Banksy vs. Bristol Museum in 2009, etc. The London art critics called the exhibition one of the most interesting of the year.

Photos: Jonny Baker, Mike Pickard, http://www.artofthestate.co.uk and Benny Goh. The name of the photographer for each photo is visible if you click on the photo.

ITV recorded this interview from the exhibitions—one of the few documented footage of a member of Team Banksy:

BBC Radio also interviewed “the same” Banksy at the Turf War exhibition:

The interview can be heard here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0gtsw3k

2003, Exhibitions, Rest of the world

Semipermanent. Sydney, 2003

by R.A.

Semipermanent was an annual art festival held in Sydney, Australia. Banksy participated with a 12-metre panel. Melbourne’s Burn Crew, Dmote of Australia, 123Klan of France, and Shepard Fairey also attended.

Photos: Gary Trinh and Semi Permanent

2002, Exhibitions, UK

Santa’s Ghetto 02, London. December 2002

by R.A.

Santa’s Ghetto was a “squat art concept store” set up at Christmas each year in different locations around London. The Dragons Bar in Shoreditch hosted the first edition. There were only Banksy and Ben Eine artworks.

2002, Exhibitions, USA

Existencilism, Los Angeles. 19 July – 18 August, 2002

by R.A.

Banksy opened his first Los Angeles exhibition, Existencilism, at the 33 1/3 Gallery on 19 July 2002. The show was sponsored by Puma. The most important piece was a big ‘Stop ESSO’ painted on one of the walls.

19 July 2002 – Opening night Existencilism, Los Angeles. The Stop Esso in the background:

Photo: http://www.thebookla.com / Marc Goldstein

It was a selling exhibition, and Banksy sold quite a few multiple canvases, most of them in an edition of 5 and dated LA 2002 on the stretcher:

Some of the multiple canvases that were sold at Existencilism. Photos: Bonhams and Sotheby’s

EXISTENCILISM IN JAPAN. SEPTEMBER 2002

A month later, Banksy opened a reduced version of the Existencilism exhibition in Japan – Osaka (8-17 September) and Tokyo (13 – 24 September). Among other pieces, a Laugh Now on cardboard with the text in Japanese:

Laugh Now on cardboard. Photo: Sotheby’s

2001, Exhibitions, USA

Burning Man, Nevada. USA, 27 August – 1 Sep 2001

by R.A.

Burning Man is an annual event held in the Black Rock Desert of northwestern Nevada, about 100 miles north-northeast of Reno. It’s not your typical festival—think of it as a temporary city, Black Rock City, built by tens of thousands of participants who gather to celebrate art, community, self-expression, and self-reliance. The event culminates in the burning of a large wooden effigy, “The Man,” on the Saturday night before Labour Day.

In the 2001 edition of the festival, Banksy had an interesting collaboration with Ukrainian-American artist Maya Hayuk, known for her colourful and abstract graffiti. The collaboration was a comic strip that covered an entire wall right in the middle of the festival area. There are very few photos remaining.

Three sections of the wall at Burning Man.

2001, Books, Exhibitions, UK

Banging your head against a brick wall – Cargo Club, London. 22 June 2001

by R.A.

In the summer of 2001, Banksy organised an exhibition at the Cargo Club on Rivington Street. Cargo Club had opened in November 2000 and was built into the railway arches in the same spot as the Rivington Street railway underpass, where Banksy had done his first show in London the year before.

The exhibition featured a lot of the many unsold pieces from the Peace is Tough exhibition in Glasgow earlier that year. It also had various outdoor pieces in the courtyard.

At the same time, Banksy released a book, Banging your head against a brick wall, the first of a series of three small black books in A6 format. It has some surprisingly well-written texts along with images of his most prominent street art and originals. 54 pages in B&W. Some curious highlights:

2001, Exhibitions, UK

Peace is Tough. Glasgow, March 2001

by R.A.

In March 2001, Banksy went to Glasgow to participate in an exhibition at The Arches, a club located under Glasgow Central Railway Station. The organiser and main attraction of the exhibition was anti-art world colleague Jamie Reid. According to several sources, Banksy’s pieces didn’t sell well, and they were taken back to London, where they appeared a few months later at the Cargo Club exhibition. Very little documentation remains.

Photos: The Arches on Flickr

2000, Exhibitions, UK

Rivington street. London, 31 May 2000

by R.A.

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 official flyer for the Rivington Street exhibition

The exhibition was divided into five sections. This is the main section:

Photo: paulavalerio82 / Flickr

The programme for the first exhibition in London: 

Rivington street programme. Source: Juliens

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.

The motives with the numbers in orange are for mail order.  Photo: Paulavalerio82 / Flickr
Rivington Street, overview