Anonymous street artist Banksy is known for his iconic graffiti art, including 'Flower Thrower', stencilled onto a mural in the West Bank in 2003. Photo: Muse Marketing and Entertainment
The guerilla-style political art of anonymous graffiti artist Banksy, which has popped up on streets in cities worldwide, will finally grace vandalism-tough Singapore this December – albeit indoors.
More than 170 of his artworks will be on show at The Art Of Banksy: Without Limits, which has toured globally and been viewed by more than 2.1 million visitors since 2016.
Dates for the exhibition, held on the first floor of the Royal Plaza on Scotts hotel, have not been announced. But the ticket wait list is now open at artofbanksyapac.com.
An exclusive highlight of the Singapore exhibition is a custom-built entrance featuring a lobby styled after Banksy’s controversial boutique hotel The Walled Off Hotel, which opened in Bethlehem, West Bank, in 2017 and offers “the worst view in the world”.
Other highlights by the self-styled prankster include Dismaland, described by the artist as a “family theme park unsuitable for children”; a print of the iconic Flower Thrower, which was stencilled onto a mural in the West Bank in 2003; and his apocalyptic sculpture of a submerged British telephone booth.
Visitors are likely to recognise many of his signature motifs in the exhibition – from sewer rats to the girl with a red balloon. Banksy, whose career as a freehand graffiti artist started in the early 1990s, has created a distinctive visual idiom with his spray paint, stencils and knack for creating digestible anti-establishment images.
Kemal Gurkaynak, managing director of exhibition production company Muse Marketing and Entertainment (in Singapore), said in a Nov 6 press statement that the organisers are “certain that locals and visitors will relish in Banksy’s ability to provoke, shock and even disturb society – all of which he does with great humour and poetry”.
The exhibition is organised by Muse along with event organising company Events and entertainment discovery platform Fever.
The exhibition is unauthorised by Banksy himself, who has denounced previous iterations as “fake” and “organised entirely without the artist’s knowledge or involvement”. The show has toured cities including Seoul, Sydney, Berlin, Chile and Seattle with a unique installation in each location.
Banksy had famously said in 2011: “I don’t think you should have to pay to look at graffiti. You should only pay if you want to get rid of it.”
Ticket sales for the Singapore run of The Art Of Banksy: Without Limits will open on Nov 13. – The Straits Times/Asia News Network
