A sample not authorized by the famous street artist comes to IFEMA, with more than 70 works, among which include 25 original and the mural that he made for Greenpeace, valued at 1.9 million euros

Melodrama and art is bad for souls white

When the exhibition Banksy, the genius or vandal? (genius or vandal) was opened for the first time to the public, this same summer, in Moscow, the artist’s reaction did not wait. In a publication on her Instagram, one of the few legitimate means of contact that offers, Banksy launched an explicit “What the hell is that?” in reference to the grounds of the exhibition. “I would never get off to see my art not to be that is an attraction of the fair. What is the opposite of LOL?”, rose sarcastically before adding: “Although I am not the most indicated to complain because someone uses images without permission”. Asked about the reaction, the curator of the exhibition, Alexander Nachkebiya, shrugging his shoulders before answering: “Banksy works free, for the people, but in the streets. Among the works that picks up our exhibit, there is not one that was created with a vocation as a street, or that there would be no way to see them free of charge. We want to regardless of whether he hates us or not.”

displaying this character does not authorized that so good you feel the halo mysterious artist, the exhibition landed in Madrid and you can enjoy it in IFEMA until the 10 of march of next year. In the so-called Space 5.1 of the institution of the exhibition are more than 70 works of Banksy, although of different origin. In addition to the 25 original works, in the sense of more classical of the word, there is a series of prints and serigraphs (prints) of the artist or his workshop made in limited series for your marketing with galleries, based in the molds and templates of their large formats. This was the case in the last great action of the artist, in which his little Girl with balloon framed, autodestruyó in the auction house Sotheby s. In the new sample, in addition to a replica of the same picture (the original of which was painted in the offices of a bank in london), visitors will face a screen that repeats in a loop the news of the performance on television stations all over the world and, also, with the decision itself that poses the disjunction of the title: What is Banksy a genius revolutionary or is it simply a vandal street?

One of the important pieces that brings the exhibit is a Stop Esso, the wall on which the artist worked for a campaign of Greenpeace against the oil company. In it, with the irony that characterized the artistic production of Banksy, a couple sits down to take in the sun while a young woman lights a cigarette with a barrel of oil. That sarcastically, half-way between the reflection tardocapitalista and the intrinsic component humanist urban art, is understood by the commissioner as “the essence” of his work. According to Nachkebiya, Banksy “he is very proud of his activism”. And he adds: “I Never would speak for him, but I think the most uncomfortable for Banksy is that you will frame, that will label. I am confident that at some point in time bring down that wall mystical, to understand their artistic process, but if they were to offer me today, to know him, I’d probably say no. The mystery is part of the work.”

IFEMA

On that invitation to the thinking that allows the authorship anonymous, also believes Rafael Giménez of Sold Out, the company that has managed the landing of this and other samples such as the Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, or Jurassic World: “we do Not intend to deceive anyone nor to mount a retrospective. Our works are original although it is an exhibition not authorized”. The certification, beyond what is legal, part of the close relationship of the organizers of the shows with the gallery of Andrew Lilley. The Lilley Fine Art, the institution of head of the first Banksy and it brings the most jobs, is probably the only house with the keys to decipher the enigma of the artist. The last great attempt, the documentary Oscar-nominated Exit through the gift shop, too, has its small hole in the sample, through the art created ex profeso for your promotion.

The relevance of the artist as genius or as a vandal, is undeniable. Not in vain, “Banksy” was the word most searched in Google during the same week in which all the media echoed the brazilian elections. And beyond the controversy that drags with each one of its movements, the exhibition comes to Madrid to share space with the velociraptors is more of a symptom of how the figure of the grafitti artist is capable of shaking the entire world of art, the elitist and the popular, who goes to auctions and that viraliza to base of likes on your actions in social networks.

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