Category: Originals

2026, Collaborations, Originals

Banksy and Hirst’s collaboration at the Moco Museum in London. 23 January 2026

by R.A.
Screenshot from https://www.mocomuseum.com

From Moco’s website:

“From January 23rd, 2026, Moco Museum London welcomes a new and exceptional artwork into its collection. For the next five months only, visitors can experience Vandalised Spot Painting (Banlofen) (2024), a rare collaboration between artists Banksy and Damien Hirst.

Damien Hirst’s Spot Paintings are among the most recognisable series in contemporary art. Built from precise systems, perfect circles, controlled colour, and repetition, they reflect an obsession with structure, balance, and clinical order. Over time, these spots became closely linked to pharmaceutical naming and scientific aesthetics, turning colour into something methodical and almost medical.

Banksy’s intervention interrupts that system.

Emerging from one of Hirst’s immaculate dots is a rat, one of Banksy‘s most enduring symbols. Associated with the overlooked and the marginal, the rat breaks the illusion of perfection. It introduces humour, rebellion, and critique into a space defined by control. The act is not destruction but dialogue, street art meeting institutional art on the same surface.

Hirst once described the collaboration simply: “I gave Banksy some spot paintings to mess about with and he painted over some of them.” The result is layered, provocative, and quietly confrontational.

Rather than choosing sides, the work holds both positions in tension, allowing control and interruption to exist without resolution.“

Source: https://www.mocomuseum.com/news/london/banksy-and-hirst-collaboration-london/

2025, Originals, UK

Never before seen Banksy sculpture at Pure Evil show in London. 20 November 2025

by R.A.

The sculpture is on display at Artmageddon, a group show at Pure Evil Gallery on Leonard Street in Shoreditch. 

Banksy gifted the bouquet to Charles Uzzel Edwards, a.k.a. Pure Evil, after having suffered a personal loss in 2024. Pure Evil and Banksy’s working relationship goes way back – Pure Evil was involved with Pictures on Walls and the Santas Ghetto exhibitions. He was also one of the invited artists at the Cans Festival, a collective street art exhibition organised by Banksy in May 2008. 

Photo: Pure Evil Gallery

2024, Originals

Madonna with Child. 16 December 2024

by R.A.

Team Banksy posted the image on Instagram around 3 pm on Monday, 16 December. Through the years, Banksy has created various renditions of the Virgin Mary and Child Jesus motif. This version on a galvanised steel plate is superb.

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

The ‘Madonna with Child’ was initially displayed at a private exhibition organised by Pest Control Office in London in February 2024:

Madonna with Child. Private exhibition, London, February 2024. Photo: Screenshot from UAA Forum

It’s not the first time Banksy mixes biblical references with politics at Christmas time:

21 December 2019
Illustration for Interview in Financial Times.
15 December 2017
Angels at the Segregation Wall. Bethlehem, December 2017
Poster for the play Alternativity. Bethlehem. December 2017

2023, Originals, Palestine, The Walled Off Hotel

New statue at Walled Off Hotel. 25 March 2023

by R.A.

A statue of Shakespeare with a Hamlet-inspired twist has replaced one of the Walled Off Hotel collection’s most recognisable pieces, David engulfed in a cloud of tear gas. Whether David has been sold or taken away for restoration is unclear. The Shakespeare statue has reportedly stood in the WOH offices for some time. Pictures of Shakespeare were published on Facebook on March 25 by Walled Off Hotel visitor Jesse Zuefle.

Above, the Shakespeare statue, photos by Jesse Zuefle. Below, David in a cloud of teargas, photo by R.A.

2021, Auctions, Charity, Originals

Game Changer canvas sold for £16.8 million at Christie’s. 23 March 2021

by R.A.

After a 20-minute bidding duel, the hammer landed at GBP 14,400,000. With the Buyers Premium, the buyer has to cough up GBP 16,758,000 – a new auction record for a Banksy canvas. The seller is NHS and the Southampton University Hospital. According to the lot sheet from Christie’s: “The proceeds will be used to support the wellbeing of University Hospital Southampton staff and patients.”

Screenshot: Sothebys.com

2020, Auctions, Charity, Originals

‘Mediterranean Sea View’ sold for £2,235,000 at Sotheby’s. 28 July 2020

by R.A.

Banksy’s take on the refugee crisis went for £2,235,000, including buyer’s premium, at Sotheby’s ‘Rembrandt to Richter’ auction, more than double the initial estimate. The selling party was ABCD Bethlehem, a Palestinian charity, after receiving the piece as a donation from Banksy. The information sheet for the lot continues: “All proceeds will go towards building a new acute stroke unit and purchasing children’s rehabilitation equipment for BASR hospital in Bethlehem.” 

The triptych has been on display at Walled Off Hotel since its opening in March 2017. Due to the coronavirus situation, the hotel remains closed until further notice. The question is whether the hotel will open again or if the sale marks the beginning of the end for the iconic hotel. Hopefully not. See the previous post: The Walled Off Hotel. Palestine, March 2017.

2017 UP Mediterranean seaview
Photo: Sotheby’s

2020, Bristol, Originals

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

by R.A.
20200609-Unique-Colston statue-Instagram
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.”