Britain Goes Bonkers for Banksy

Graffiti art is now all over museum walls—but its far from vandalism. “Banksy Versus Bristol Museum,” an exhibit of more than 100 works by Banksy, the elusive street artist, opened last week at Bristol’s City Museum and Art Gallery. The show is a “remix” of the museum’s collection, in which Banksy has interspersed his own work with what’s on the museum walls. Banksy is an anonymous street artist whose work has gained notoriety over the last few years and garnered high prices at auction. And true to fashion, he’s kept the show all but a secret from media and local authorities. But the public has caught on, with lines of more than an hour forming on Saturday; the exhibition is expected to draw more than 100,000 visitors this summer. Writes the Telegraph of the show: “Banksy Versus Bristol Museum succeeds triumphantly in its aim: it's a museum show that is as cheeky and renegade— and communicates as directly with its viewers – as a piece of illegal graffiti.” And the fact that he's finally legal comes as a surprise to the artist: “This is the first show I’ve ever done where taxpayers’ money is being used to hang my pictures up rather than scrape them off,” Banksy said. “This show is vision of the future.”