Banksy is the infamous street artist, who emerged out of London, and his identity has been kept secret. Over 80 pieces of his well-known street art will be featured in an upcoming exhibition in Melbourne opening on October 7, 2016 and running until January 22, 2017 called ‘The Art of Banksy’.
The exhibition is curated by Banksy’s manager, Steve Lazarides and will be held in the car park behind Federation Square in Melbourne. The area will be transformed to include food trucks, markets, arts and crafts, beer, cocktails and on the weekend evenings there will be live DJs. Local street artists such as Adnate, Bailer, Heesco, Makatron and Ruskidd will also show their work.
This will be the largest collection of Banksy works to come to Australia. His most well-known work is ‘Girl with Balloon’ where a black and white image of a girl who has let go of her balloon reaches for the heart shaped red balloon as it drifts away from her grasp, both images stencilled on a wall. ‘Laugh now’ is another favourite which features repeated stencilled images of monkeys on a wall with the text ‘laugh now but one day we’ll be in charge’ across their chest.
Another project by Banksy was ‘Dismaland’ which was mocking Disneyland and used the Disney font and the Cinderella castle, except it looked like it had been burnt down and called itself a ‘bemusement park’. It explores issues of anti-consumerism, immigration and celebrity culture and was open for five weeks to the British public.
Banksy has established notoriety for his anti-establishment street art and the air of mystery around his identity. This exhibition in Melbourne is featuring an enormous amount of his work and other street artists work, as well as providing a space for food and entertainment and should be a successful, intriguing and fun event.
