The Exhibition of Sir Robert Banks

I recently walked through the Andipa Gallery near South Kensington tube station where they were hosting an exhibit on the London-based graffiti artist, Banksy. Everything about this experience just felt wrong and uncomfortable to me, like a jigsaw piece that was cut and distorted to fit into a space it did not belong. It could have been the route I took past the high end boutiques and posh flats to arrive at the gallery which looked like the wine cellar to an old spanish castle. The show was privately sourced and is the product of years of accumulating Banksy pieces.

The show just contradicted everything I knew about Banksy and his stance on anti-consumerism and political ignorance. To me, his work is supposed to provoke thought and add a sense of humor to our society and surroundings in a public space where art can be available to everyone, not just those with deep wallets. But people are idiots and can’t recognize the bigger picture, so now everything he stood for has been turned around. The lucky ones with money can now have their very own Banksy piece to hang in their living room and impress all their friends. Congratulations. The exhibit created this illusion that made his pieces look like fine works of craftsmanship, like that you would see in a museum. But if you were examine his work you would see that is is more about the content and context rather than technique. A real Banksy exhibit is not held in some sterile art gallery, it is an experience that envelopes the viewer, and it certainly would not have a price tag slapped on the side of his pieces. Banksy himself had a similar reaction to this recent distribution of his work by creating this image. If your going to have a Banksy exhibit, its better to leave it up to the man himself, or you’ll most likely become the inspiration for his next piece.