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It couldn’t possibly be him if the Internet rumors and apocryphal tales of Banksy’s real identity are true…
Halfway through your arrow pointed tour of the new Banksy Museum in lower Manhattan you watch a video.An older man on NYC streets is manning a table where unlabeled screen prints of Banksy art are for sale.The takers are few and far in between.An older woman hopes to find presents for her grandchildren.A young man wants to fill in his empty walls.The unassuming street vendor gives the few customers what they want. Sometimes he throws in a hug.The vendor rakes in a few hundred dollars by day’s end.Little do the customers know that the print they just bought for a relative song might actually be worth more than 800 pounds if it were being sold in a chichi London art gallery. It’s a prank worthy of Banksy, the artist who triggered the shredding of one of his prints precisely when a famed auction house announced its multimillion dollar sale to the crowd of bidders.
Inside/Outside at the Banksy Museum
Giving the art world the bird is an on again off again past time for Banksy.He’s quoted as saying he thinks museums are a mediocre way to view art.What a conundrum for museum curators!Navigating ways to bypass laws about creative copyright and ownership is the least of it.How do you bottle the feel of stumbling upon a Banksy in real world streets?
The Banksy Museum of NY has succeeded, in this writer’s view.From a small entryway on a busy Chinatown street, you initially have no idea of what awaits you upstairs.The first clue comes at the entryway sign, which has the word NOT graffiti’d on to read NOT The Banksy Museum.
Museum Exterior Photo and Slider of Museum Halls by Peter Kachergis
You meet a street mural at the top of the stairs, recreated to scale.It makes you grin.You then don’t know that when you turn the next corner you will see another, and then another, and so forth—- until you Exit Through the Gift Shop, per the title of Banksy’s documentary/mockumentary 2010 film.It takes but an hour to do the whole museum circuit, perhaps two if you are doing more of a deep dive linger. You will likely feel as if you’ve been outside more than inside.
Subversive at Every Turn
You’ll see a lot of rats in Banksy art, the nocturnal creatures whom Banksy relates to as his alter ego.You see apes taunting that they’ll be here when we are gone.Give Banksy a classic image, and he sees a visual trope ready for parody.
SHOW ME THE MONET-- pillorying consumerismPhoto: Peter Kachergis
Photo: Peter Kachergis
Photo: Peter Kachergis
Mostly you feel Banksy’s rage, and especially in the again so timely re-creation of one of the rooms in the Walled Off Hotel.This is a real-world Banksy creation in Paris that unsuspecting tourists amble past every day without realizing the power of its message about Palestinians living in an apartheid state.Here though in the NY Banksy Museum you immerse in the satire’s details —from carefully gilded frame of the Balfour Declaration on the wall to Victorian décor touches reminding of Britain’s role in the prequel to today's headlines.
Clever, you think.Your inner subversive is deeply tickled.
Photos courtesy of The Banksy Museum NYC, unless otherwise indicated.
Amy Munice
About the Author: Amy Munice
Amy Munice is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher of Picture This Post. She covers books, dance, film, theater, music, museums and travel. Prior to founding Picture This Post, Amy was a freelance writer and global PR specialist for decades—writing and ghostwriting thousands of articles and promotional communications on a wide range of technical and not-so-technical topics.
