I was wandering around Prague yesterday when I stumbled upon the Banksy Museum (The World of Banksy), on my way to see the rotating Kafka head. A museum for the works of Banksy had never entered my imagination as it feels like an oxymoron. This is housed in a 15th century church and on the doorway, it is mentioned: “Just like Banksy usually presents his art at unusual places, our exhibition also takes place at an unusual location – a church right in the heart of Prague. Czech priest and church reformer Jan Hus used to preach here in the 15th century. The church and adjacent monastery were later disestablished during the reforms of Emperor Joseph II in the 18th century. In its most recent history, the church building served as a warehouse and a nightclub. Now, after centuries, it finally hosts another reformer – Banksy!”. I had to go in!
There are several works of Banksy organised inside the museum, and I guess most, if not all, are replicas. There are many videos as well and it was indeed a very good experience to see many works by Banksy at the same location. The show starts with the famous girl with a balloon, and I am reproducing some of the works that I could photograph.
“Girl with Balloon” is one of Banksy’s most known works and was painted on the stairs near London’s Waterloo Bridge in 2002. This work announced Banksy’s arrival into the world of graffiti, and he has been instrumental in increasing the power and impact of the medium.
“Sweep It Under the Carpet” from 2006. In the make believe world that we live in, which is becoming more and more about just appearances and covering up, this work needs no explanation.
We live in the era of DIY where we can just assemble everything ourselves with the set of instructions provided. Ironically, even art seems to be headed in that direction!
A work related to Guantanamo Bay; in the painting, the prisoner is placed on an idyliic seashore.
This was to expose the issue of using child (often slave) labour, so that the twin celebrations on the 2012 Olympic Games and Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee could go on in all its pomp and gaiety.
This is an artistic parody of Théodore Géricault’s “The Raft of the Medusa”. While Gerricault painted the plight of a bunch of shipwrecked soldiers, Banksy that projected that idea on to our times of the have and have-nots, with a luxury yacht thrown in.
This artwork was executed in a refugee camp called “The Jungle” that existed in Calais in France between January 2015 to October 2016. In this mural, which was unveiled on 11 December 2015, Steve Jobs is shown carrying a typical black garbage bag as is often carried by refugees, slung over his shoulder and the original Apple computer in this other hand. At a time when the refugee crisis was at its peak with many countries looking down upon immigrants, Banksy was reminding the world that the founder of the most valuable company in the world, was himself the son for an immigrant from Syria. The sad truth is that this artwork is even more relevant today, than it was in 2015.
Capitalism, unabated.
On 5 October 2018, the “Girl with Balloon” went up for auction in Sotheby’s as a framed artwork and it sold for a record-breaking (for Banksy) price of GBP 1,042,000/-. Immediately after the final bid was accepted, a mechanical paper shredder hidden in the frame started destruct the painting, much to the dismay and horror of a room full of bewildered art collectors. The shredder malfunctioned when it was about half-way through and so the painting was not fully destroyed. It seems that Banksy had gifted this artwork to a friend in 2006 and he had installed the shredder then itself with a plan to destruct it, should it ever be sold in an auction.
Three years later, this artwork, which was partially destroyed, was renamed as “Love Is In The Bin” and was sold at another auction at the same Sotheby’s for a yet another record-breaking price of GBP 18,582,000/-.
Here Banksy is seen mocking the art collectors who buy artworks at astronomically high prices. I was tempted to compare this work with what happened with the Girl with Balloon. I had read about the incident at the time and wondered whether the purchaser would agree to buy it now that the work itself was damaged. It just showed how little I understood the brains of the moneyed that operate in the art world. After the event, there were some negotiations, and the buyer agreed to pay the full price. Sotheby’s labelled the whole episode as “the first artwork in history to have been created live during an auction”. It sems market watchers had speculated then itself that the self-destruction would increase the value of the painting. Looks like they were right because the artwork appreciated in value from 1 Million to 18.5 Million in just three years; a return in investment that even the best investors can only dream about. So, they are not “morons” as Banksy states in his work. This ability to pivot and take on challenges and convert them into opportunities is a unique aspect of capitalism.
No, this is not an artwork artwork (yes, this is a Banksy work, but here it is actually meant to be functional)! The Banksy Museum is no different from other museums in this aspect and they too force the visitor to move through a shop, hoping to monetise the viewer’s receptive state of mind, coming after watching the exhibition. Banksy is a genius, and I felt this was an insult to him. Or maybe, as a friend remarked, when I sent him a photo of this, “That is the actual Banksy work there”.
Kaazhchakal 