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Where do you expect to see graffiti? Probably not in a
museum. Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, in the south-west of England, was the
kind of place where you could see classical pictures and statues. However, in the
summer of 2009 the exhibition ‘Banksy versus the Bristol Museum’opened. The
exhibition presented more than a hundred works by Banksy, one of the world’s
most famous graffiti artists.
Banksy is a puzzle to all. He keeps his identity secret. He hardly ever gives
interviews and likes to remain anonymous. Nobody knows much about his life or
his background but many people believe that his real name is either Robert Banks
or Robin Banks and that he was born in England, somewhere near Bristol.
Banksy’s street art is always provocative. It's his way of communicating with
society. His graffiti is characterised by bright and frequently shocking images,
often combined with slogans. His work is often a personal protest against wars,
social policy or people's behaviour. Although graffiti is not allowed in cities,
Banksy's works have become immensely popular.
Banksy believes that art should not be used for advertising. He has refused four
times to do adverts for Nike, a famous sportswear company.
A year after the Bristol exhibition, Banksy made a film called ‘Exit Through the
Gift Shop’. The film tells the story of a street artist. It got many positive reviews
from the critics and from the general audience.
Another curious fact from Banksy's biography is that once he was named among
the 100 most influential people in the world. He actually found himself in the
company of Barack Obama, Steve Jobs and Lady Gaga. When he was asked to
send a photo, Banksy sent a picture of himself with a paper bag (recyclable,
naturally) over his head. His fans still don’t really know who he is.
Bristol isn’t the only place in Britain to welcome and accept graffiti. A park
in Dundee, Scotland, has the longest legal graffiti wall (almost 110 metres long) in
the UK. Anyone can paint on the wall any time they like. The idea of this graffiti
wall project is to demonstrate the positive side of graffiti and to organise
workshops and graffiti classes for local children.
Even the capital of the country could not stay free of street art. There's a special
website dedicated to London's street art and artists. The site's team is a group of
enthusiastic young people who are closely connected with the street art world.
They try to record and register all the works and display them on their ‘Street Art
London’ site. That is quite a job to do! The reason is that street art is very temporal
and short-lived: graffiti is soon covered by another wall painting so they have to be
quick to take a picture and post it on the website