From February 12 to April 11, Warsaw hosts an exhibition – The Art of Banksy Without Limits – by an outstanding street art artist – Banksy. The exhibition is hosted by the Warsaw Koneser, and its curator is Guillermo S. Quintana who brought over 100 works of the artist, of which 17 are the original work of the artist.
Ticket control
The very entrance to the exhibition perfectly refers to the artist’s sense of humor. At the entrance we are greeted by ticket control which has similar gates as at airports, but if we take a closer look, it turns out that the gate, luggage scanner, desk and chairs are made of cardboard boxes and painted with a market.
Also an interesting idea the organizers prepared at the exit, where installations resembling a picture that had a built-in shredder in its arm were made. And right behind it we have a shop with T-shirts and sweatshirts that we can buy, or prepare ourselves. PLN 10 of profit from each of them goes to help refugees.
Banksy’s original works
Although Banksy despises art galleries and auctions, his work is still worth a fortune. Some of the works that are on display at the Prague Connoisseur Center come from the Banksy Hotel which is located in Jerusalem.
There are also original works from the project “Dismaland” which took place in 2015. It was a project of an ironic amusement park that is not intended for children. The first Dismaland manifesto translated into Polish was also for the exhibition in Poland.
Impressions from the exhibition The Art Of Banksy Without Limits
The exhibition itself did not impress me as much as it is promoted, but I still think that it is worth getting acquainted with such a form, especially if we have not met his work before. The exhibition shows the values of the artist, his message and sense of humor related to art. It is not even known whether Banksy knows about this exhibition, because he does not even appear at major vernissages of his works. They also happen that his work is appropriated by various people and goes to auction, where they are very highly valued.
My feelings for this form of presentation of his works are mixed. Just as it’s hard to make an exhibition of murals, it’s the same here. I think I’ll be more impressed by a trip to London, where Banksy’s work is in place for the people of the city, every day for free. Visiting London, you can find walls, protected protective plexiglass, and sometimes also cameras or security.
Boat Louise Michel
Out of curiosities I will write, because not everyone can yet hear about it. In 2020, Banksy wrote to a French lifeboat captain working for an NGO that helps refugees found at sea. The artist mentioned that his last works (like this doormat made of elements of a life jacket) touched on migration topics and he cannot keep the money earned in this way and wants to fund a new lifeboat for it.
This is how the idea of Louise Michel’s Boat was created in honor of the famous feminist anarchist, which was decorated with the artist’s work that refers to the famous girl with a balloon. This time, on the boat, he painted a girl in a life jacket holding a heart-shaped life buoy. The Art Of Banksy Without Limits exhibition also contains several references to this boat.
A German-flagged boat began to help emigrants stranded in the Mediterranean trying to escape from North Africa to Southern Europe. From the very beginning, she saved dozens of people, including women and children.
Who is Banksy?
All in all, it is not known. Most likely, he comes from the UK and is about 47 years old. Banksy is an artist who works on the border between art and law, so he does not want to reveal himself, so little is known about him. There are many stories and photos circulating on the Internet that allegedly expose him, but I approach it with a distance. Creating such articles and even “sets” to take a picture of an elusive artist is certainly a great click-bait for attracting people to different places on the Internet. For me, what is more important is what he wants to convey and how he does it, than how he looks. As they say, “Work in silence, let the effects make noise.”
Map of Banksy’s murals in London
If you want to visit London and find Banksy’s work, below you will find a map created by one of the fans of his art. In this way, you can find the best exhibition of his works, which is the street. If someone is already london, here you will actually find the exhibition The Art Of Banksy Without Limits – no tickets and time limits. Everyone can watch its creatorship. While in Israel, you can also visit his hotel The Walled Off Hotel which also contains many works and is also a kind of work of an aristocrat.
List of unauthorized exhibitions
https://www.banksy.co.uk/shows.asp
Banksy’s Fake Exhibition
After writing this post, I heard that the exhibition is fake and in fact, it can be. So far on the page, where there are exhibitions that are not authorized, the one from Polish did not appear, but you can see that under the same name it appears several times – “The Art of Banksy without limits” Most of the artist’s works are reproductions, and he himself, according to various sources, did not charge any fees for this, unless it was an amusement park as in the case of Dismaland. Only that comparing Dismaland to the exhibition in Warsaw is a huge gap, because we compare often reprinted reproductions and reproduced works of Banksy to a huge undertaking in which dozens of different artists took part. And with the rest, see for yourself what you could see there.
