We finally made it! We went to the House of Banksy in Munich.
Since I heard of this artist I have been a big fan! Bringing a message into this world to make people think about current things going on without taking credit for it is in my opinion a character strength that not many show anymore. - So I always wanted to see at least one of his works in person.
The first exhibition I heard of was the pop-up exhibition in March 2021: The Mystery of Banksy – A Genius Mind, and ever since I have wanted to go.
As it has been very successful with over 2.5 million visitors in 24 cities and seven countries, the then Street -Art superstar established himself with that exhibition worldwide, and came up with another pop-up concept: “House of Banksy – An Unauthorized Exhibition”!
This time I just had to go!
The exhibition basically is a presentation of over 150 motifs by Banksy.
As you will see in my pictures and video, his graffiti, photographs, sculptures, video installations, and prints on various materials such as canvas, wood, aluminum, plaster, concrete, brick, and plexiglass were reproduced specifically for this show and brought together in an elaborate and unique setting.
The idea is that the exhibition brings the message of this artistic genius to a wider audience without having to travel far which I think is great!
Of course, as no one officially knows who Banksy is, the House of Banksy is an "unauthorized exhibition"... but I don´t really believe it is. I can´t imagine how they could have brought all of this together without any help from him! - but who knows ...
For me, it is just awesome as here you can visit Banksy's most famous works in one place and encounter his engagement with the various hot topics without traveling the world and searching for his pieces.
We bought the tickets online a week before. You can purchase day tickets or a bit cheaper -> time window tickets. So we had to be there between 11:00 and 11:30 o'clock.
In Munich the exhibition is located within a former shopping mall, so it is right in the city center, easy to find at Karlsplatz Stachus.
As there were not many people waiting we could enter it super fast. At the entrance, they provided a Wifi password and background info for us at the Free Multi-Media tour. Here you can read all about his artwork: http://banksy.multimedia-tour.com
I can just highly recommend going to the site and checking it out if you are interested as you can not only read about the artwork but also find YouTube videos about it.
So with this info on our phones, we finally decided to enter the exhibition - and we walked into the first room.
We learned quickly that every room had a topic. The first one was about his work in the Ukraine. The room has duplicates of the artwork he did in Borodianka, northwest of the capital Kiev. This is the place that was captured by Russian troops shortly after the start of the war on February 24th. In April, Ukrainian units were able to liberate the settlement. Ukraine accuses Russian troops of committing “mass atrocities” in the suburb as well as in Bucha, Hostomel and Irpin. These include murders, kidnappings, torture and rape.
On one of them, you can see on a wall how a small boy throws a grown man to the ground in judo - apparently a reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is an enthusiastic judoka. In the Kyiv suburb of Irpin, a rhythmic gymnast wearing a neck brace and a ribbon in her hand dances over a hole in a wall. A fourth work, similar to Banksy's signature spray style, shows two children in Kyiv using a metal tank trap as a seesaw.
The art speaks for itself I guess... I didn´t know before that Banksy even travels to war zones and helps so many refugees. How brave... and what a great way to support the people giving them and the topic visibility!
After watching the movie and the artwork we moved on the the next room which was called "The World Tour". Here we could find art work from all over the world in one room. - and one wall covering his CV.
On one wall we could read all about the milestones in his unrivaled career
Reading about his way through the years all on one wall it was great to understand his growth as an artist and his development in how he expressed himself. Also very interesting to learn about all he did until now in such detail. So of course I decided to take a pic and share it here with you:
1990 - 2001: Banksy has been active in the graffiti scene since the early 90s. Initially, he was associated with a gang of underground street artists in Bristol. Around the turn of the millennium, he had switched to "stenciling" (spraying with stencils) after realizing how much faster it was to complete a work.
2002 his first exhibition in Los Angeles "Existencilism". Also the first mural of the "girl with the balloon" was emblazoned on the stairs of the waterloo Bridge on the south bank of the Thames.
2003 His first major exhibition "Turf WAR" in London.
2004 Banksy produced 1.000 000 worth of fake 10 notes on which he replaced the image of the Queen with that of Princess Diana and changed the text "Bank of England" to "Banksy of England". He threw quite a few of them into a crowd at the Notting Hill Carnival that year - some tried to spend the notes in shops there.
2004-2005 Banksy placed disturbing works at the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, and the Brooklyn Museum. Also, he traveled to the Palestinian territories and created new paintings on the west side of the Israeli wall. His second major exhibition " Crude Oils" took place in London.
In April 2006, Banksy created a sculpture based on a crumpled phone booth with a pickaxe in its side, apparently bleeding, and placed it in a side street in Soho, London.
Also together with his friend DJ Danger Mouse, he removed Paris Hiltons debut album from various HMV record stores in London and exchanged them for her own fake CDs, mocking her with slogans and remix songs. With his own cover design, he also depicted Hiltons topless or swapped her head with that of her Chihuahua. The barcode remained unchanged so that people could buy the CD.
Guantanamo Bay: Banksy dressed an inflatable doll in orange overalls, a black hoodie, and handcuffs, making it look like a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay Prison. He then placed this under the Big Thunder Mountain roller coaster of the Disneyland resort in California where it stood for 90 minutes until the roller coaster was closed and the figure removed. By placing a recognizably political symbol in an environment from reality, Banksy made a clear statement about our tendency to close our eyes to everything.
2006-2008: His third major exhibition "Barely Legal" took place in Los Angeles. Also he had the Wall and Piece Book release
The Cans Festival: One weekend in May 2008, Banksy held an exhibition in London called "The Cans Festival" (a pun on the famous French film festival in Cannes). Stencil artists from all over the world were invited to paint their works, with the only condition that they did not paint over or interfere with each other. It took place in a road tunnel under London´s Waterloo Station.
2009 Banksy vs. Bristol Museum: On June 13th the Banksy vs. Bristol Museum exhibition opened at the Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery.
In December 2009 Banksy marked the end of the United Nations climate change conference with four murals on global warming. One of them showed the sentence "I don´t believe in global warming" which sank into the water
2010 Time Magazine put the British artist on its list of the 100 most influential people in the world. His film was released and won the title of Best Documentary in 2010. Banksy expanded his oeuvre/creation to include filmmaking after hiring up-and-coming street artist Thierry Guetta as an assistant and documentary filmmaker on various trips to Los Angeles.
In July 2012, in the run-up to the Olympics. 2013 Better out than in: On October 1st, Banksy began a month-long "show on the streets of New York City" for which he opened a separate website and granted an interview to the Village Voice through his publisher.
A pop-up stand with about 25 spray art canvases appeared on Fith Avenue near Central Park on October 12th. Tourists could buy Banksy art for just 60 USD a piece. In a note posted on his website, the artist wrote: "Please note that this was a one time thing. This stall will not be there again."
2014 He was named "Person of the Year" by the 2014 Webby Awards
2015 The Gaza Strip: In February, Banksy released a two-minute video titled "Make this the year you discover a new destination" about his trip to the Gaza Strip. During his visit, he created some works.
Dismaland Bemusement Park: From August 21st to Semptember 27th, Banksy Dismaland opened in Weston-super-Mare in the UK. The large-scale group show which also featured guest artists Damien Hirst and Jenny Holzer was a dark and twisted spoof of Disneyland. The temporary theme park featured a sinister castle and an overturned Cinderella carriage.
2016 Once again, the most famous unknown artist responds to social injustice against immigrants. This work by Banksy created in London makes a clear statement criticizing the blatant use of tear gas on refugees in the Calais "jungle"
2017 Banksy´s interpretation of Brexit comes at a delicate time for European politics: Britain is undergoing elections at the time that will determine its relationship with and without the EU. Across the Channel, just 80 kilometers away, France is deciding its European future.
The Walled-Off Hotel: The Walled-Off Hotel is a boutique hotel designed by Banksy and other creatives. It is located directly on the barrier wall in Bethlehem, a provocation to draw attention to the conflict in the Middle East. It is called "the hotel with the worst view in the world"
2018-2019 a 22-metre-long mural was unveiled in New York on March 15, 2018, in support of the imprisoned Kurdish painter Zehra Dogan.
Love is in the Bin: The work titled "Love is in the bin", was originally the "Girl with Balloon" before it was destroyed at Sotheby´s. After the final offer, a shredder inside the frame was activated; the painting was partially cut up.
In October 2019, Banksy opened a "pop-up-shop" called "Gross Domestic Product" in south London to strengthen his position in a dispute with a greeting card company.
Venice in Oil: Banksy exhibited his work "Venice in Oil" outside the Venice Biennale, to which he was not invited.
2020 Game Changer: Banksy's work celebrates the nursing staff in the UK, portrayed as superheroes during the ongoing battle against the coronavirus
Black Lives Matter: "People of Colour" are let down by the system - the white system! Banksy has added a new work to the debate on racism and police violence in the United States
If you don´t Mask you don´t get: Banksy posted a video on Instagram. Dressed as a cleaner, he enters underground and uses stencils to spray rats on the walls which are depicted with masks as parachutes or with hand sanitizer dispensers in their paws
Louise Michel: In the dispute over the treatment of refugees in the Mediterranean, Banksy has criticized the EU and financed the entire rescue ship "Louise Michel". It is named after the French anarchist Louise Michel.
2021: A Great British Spraycation: Ten artworks by Banksy popped up across coastal towns in England. A Great British Spraycation satirizes the idea of "staycations", a necessary alternative to traditional holidays in the wake of COVID-19.
2022-2023: Banksy spray-painted seven murals in Ukraine, including in the capital Kyiv, the suburb of Irpin, and the city of Borodyanka, which has been hardest hit by Russian bombing.
Cut & Run: An exhibition of stencils from 1998-2023 from June 15th-August 18th in Glasgow
In the next room, there was a bit of screen showing one of his documentaries with seats in front of them. On the walls we could see several of his paintings from different exhibitions and on the other side the big pink elephant.
It was great to see the artwork watching his videos and explanations from others of it. It gave the whole work more perspectives to think about. In the next room we could see even more works of his that are currently in the world.
My favorites are the "Venice in Oil" picture with the migrant child next to it that he had placed for the opening of the Venice Biennale 2019, in the central Piazza San Marco.
The girl with the balloon shredding itself of course is super famous and unique. It was up for auction and destroyed itself only moments after the painting was sold for £860,00. The shredder secretly built into the frame triggered and destroyed the canvas. With this statement on the commercialization of his work, Banksy made history in the art community.
In the next room we could learn all about the project Dismaland - the Bemusement Park organized in the resort of Weston-super-Mare in Somerset, England. The artist describes the exhibition as a “family theme park un-suitable for children”.
The next room was filled with artwork really much speaking for itself. What is your favorite here and why? I would love to hear all about it. I for my part was a little bit overwhelmed at that point already. Now I got an idea of why normally you couldn´t find all of his work on one spot. Where would you find the time to think about all the impulses you get then?!!
Of course, here we learned also more about his artistic styles in a room where we could imagine him working on a new project with all his material around him:
The next room showcased his hotel project. Entering the room we found ourselves right in the hotel room of the Walled Off Hotel. In the room, one of Banksy's most famous pieces adorns the headboard of the bed: an Israeli and a Palestinian soldier in a pillow fight. Sleeping here must feel like spending the night in a museum.
In the next room we learned all about the “Louise Michel” boat. It is named after the French anarchist of the same name and a 31-metre long lifeboat financed and artistically designed by Banksy.
The crew consists of ten experienced rescue workers and activists from Europe. The aim is to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean fleeing from North Africa to Europe from overcrowded and unworthy refugee boats and bring them to safety.
Learning all about that I couldn't resist but wonder how after all those great projects Banksy did, he can still be an anonymous person!! - This most be such a hard task to be kept secret!
From here the exhibition was leading into a hallway covered with cameras. I was imagining Banksy looking through one of them watching his visitors haha. What a great image that would be.
But of course, this installation is all about his work “CCTV Works”, which was a direct response to the United Kingdom’s growing surveillance culture.
At the time, it was estimated that the UK had one CCTV camera for every 14 people, with London being one of the most heavily surveilled cities in the world.
Right there the exhibition ended officially... well I mean there was still the shop, the toilet and the selfie spot: The Spy both
The original appeared in 2014 three miles from the government intelligence centre Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ. It featured three spies wearing trench coats and sunglasses using listening devices to tap into conversations at an actual public telephone box. As a profiler and criminalistic addict I just loved to take a picture in there :D
The Souvenir shop was covered in Banksy things. Magnets, Shirts, Bags and much more to buy and take away. - I just really hope that the money goes right to him so he can keep doing such a great creative and important job in this world that gets crazier every day.
Of course, even though the exhibition was officially over, someone like Banksy didn´t stay in the usual, so even the exit and the toilets were covered by his artwork. I really hope the exhibition will be a permanent one and I can only highly recommend to all of you to come and check it out as it´s not only unique in an artistic way but also in a human way.
The perfect day trip for us! I hope you enjoyed it just as much as we did! And don't forget to check out the artwork here for more details: http://banksy.multimedia-tour.com/
Cheers,
Liz