The Art of Banksy. A Visual Protest

" Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable " - Banksy

LOT-ART visited for you 'A Visual Protest. The Art of Banksy', at MUDEC, Milan, Italy.

Banksy, a British artist and writer whose identity is still unknown, is considered one of the leading exponents of contemporary street art. His works are often laced with satire and deal with universal subjects such as politics, culture, and ethics. The shroud of mystery that by choice is perpetuated by Bansky has turned him into an absolute legend of our age. His visual protest engages with a vast and heterogeneous public and has made him one of the best loved artists among the younger generations. For the first time, the MUDEC-Museo delle Culture di Milano is hosting a retrospective on the British artist's work. The exhibition "The Art of Banksy. A Visual Protest", from 21 November 2018 until 14 April 2019, and represents the acme of the paradox that revolves around the artist. 


^{Devolved Parliament, 2009}

The exhibition is not authorized by the artist, like all those that have been devoted to his work till now. Banksy continues to defend his anonymity and independence from the art system. “A Visual Protest. The Art of Banksy” now at MUDEC presents about 80 works including paintings, sculptures and prints by the British artist, accompanied by objects, photographs, and videos, about 60 album and CD covers, which the artist himself curated, and about forty pieces of memorabilia (lithographs, stickers, prints, magazines, fanzines, tickets, promotional flyers), that retrospectively describe the work and thinking of Banksy. A path in its own way academic and unusual, which provides the audience with a key to the interpretation (and appreciation) of the cultures of the world and the major themes of our contemporary age by way of the visual, performative, and sound arts.


^{Left: I Fought The Law, 2004; Right: Sale Ends Today, 2017}      
                                                          
A Visual Protest, The Art of Banksy is divided into several sections aimed at stimulating our critical reflection and (what may be) Banksy's place within the history of contemporary art. The exhibition is also part of a wider scientific project conceived by MUDEC  “geographical knowledge” envisioned as the vision of territories and cultures and the crossing of borders, seen through the lens of various subjects for study. In Banksy's art the relationship with geography and the landscape are connoted by absolutely "social" features: the relationship with the human landscape in which Banksy expresses himself, often in war zones, which even politics and institutions struggle to reach, the experimental approach, the theory of "psychogeography” inspired by Situationism, according to which the space of the artist is the territory. A Visual Protest. The Art of Banksy is the third exhibition in the overall project called “Geography of the Future”.


^{Left: Free Palestine Poster; Right: Jack And Jill (Police Kids), 2005}

BANKSY, ART AND SOCIO-POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT
There is much speculation about his name and his identity. He was born and grew up in Bristol, but apart from this little or nothing is known about him. Mr. Gianni Mercurio, curator of the exhibition, recalls how one characteristic the “writers” of yesterday (the artists who in early seventies New York sprayed the first graffiti on the exteriors of the subway carriages and later on the walls of the New York stations) share with today’s street artists is their multicultural origins. The first writers “came from various New York neighbourhoods with diverse communities (the blacks of Harlem, the Hispanics and Italians of the Bronx and the lower East Side). It is no accident that the primary effect of their expression was the invention of a new style of writing that previously didn’t exist, an amalgam of many lettering styles from Arabic script to Western and Asian scripts. In this panorama” Mercurio states, “Banksy amplifies and expands the multicultural character of the “writers” who initially inspired him: like the street artists of his generation, he accentuates the content of the socio-political messages in an explicit way, indeed he radically shifts the message from the form to the content”. His message, his art, manifests itself as an explicit and scathing criticism directed at the arrogance of the establishment, of power, conformism, war, and consumerism.


^{Left: Toxic Mary, 2004; Right: The Walled Off Hotel}

In Banksy’s work the words often go beyond an aesthetic evaluation or a declaration of intent, but highlight his firm stance against the contemporary art system. In view of the empathy between Banksy and a young audience, how do the critics and the market view the British artist? Banksy’s work is now the object of interest of major art dealers and part of the most trend-setting collections. Contrary to what the artist would probably wish for, opposed as he is to the capitalist validation of art, the value of his work is increasing exponentially, creating a “further short circuit around Banksy, coming on top of the ones that already surround this almost legendary figure.”
_{^{Press release from http://bit.ly/2UAC0IR}} 

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