The artist Banksy does not approve of a current exhibition of his work — but that hasn't deterred his fans from flocking to it. The unauthorized show, running in conjunction with Art Basel Miami Beach — the city's annual high-profile art market — features 80 of Banksy's works and is one of the fair's hottest tickets this year.
The company that represents Banksy says the show was organized by "unscrupulous profiteers."
More than 100,000 people saw the show when it was mounted earlier this year in Toronto. It includes silk-screen prints and spray-painted canvasses — smaller versions of the images the artist was painting on walls in Bristol and London a decade ago.
Many of the works are familiar — there's the riot policeman with a smiley face, a Pulp Fiction sendup in which John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson hold bananas in place of guns, and spoof 10 pound notes on which the image of Queen Elizabeth II is replaced with an image of Princess Diana. There's a man launching a bouquet of flowers, and a little girl reaching out as a heart-shaped red balloon floats away.
That image of the girl with the balloon was in the news recently when a canvas version was partially and deliberately shredded after it was sold at auction for $1.4 million.
Chris Ford, one of the show's curators, says the pieces are on loan from collectors, many of whom purchased them from the artist.
There's something jarring about seeing work by an artist known for his guerrilla installations, displayed in a gallery. His stenciled paintings — often carrying a message that's both humorous and political — have popped up surreptitiously on walls from New York to the Gaza strip. One photo in the show captures a slogan Banksy stenciled in Trafalgar Square in 2003 labeling it a "Designated Riot Area."
This show was mounted without the participation or approval of the artist, a fact organizer Steve Lazarides says is made clear to all visitors. "I wouldn't want anyone to ever think this is a Banksy show," Lazarides says. "It's not. It's an exhibition of Banksy's works. And it's not anything that he has any involvement in."
If Lazarides sounds defensive, that's because he and Banksy have a history. Lazarides worked with the artist for several years, eventually becoming his dealer until the two had a falling out. A decade after they parted ways, Lazarides is still profiting from his Banksy connection.
"I know he doesn't like the show," Lazarides says. "But I think at the end of the day, is it better for hundreds of thousands of people to come and view those paintings or for them to be stuck on the wall of one collector?"
In a statement, Banksy's management company says legal proceedings are underway against the exhibition's organizers who, in their view, "abuse Banksy's name for their own financial greed."
At the show in Miami, ticket prices start near $40. Some visitors didn't seem to have a problem with the cost or that it was an unauthorized show. One even thought it fit particularly well with Banksy's iconoclastic image:
"All of his installations are always kind of like controversial," Karen Correa said. "So it feels like it's kind of like an invitation to come."
The fact that Banksy's work, much of it with an anti-capitalist message, generates millions of dollars for the artist — and the organizers of this show — is an irony lost on no one, especially Banksy fans.
As one visitor left the show, he pulled out his phone to take a photo of a 2001 Banksy quote on the gallery wall:
We can't do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves.
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