‘The Art of Banksy’ Exhibition has re-opened at the Tesla Loft, Kaczinczy utca 21, BP 1075 and is open from now until the end of July when it moves to another European venue. Brazenly advertised as ‘an illegal exhibition’ and ‘without limits’, it is a retrospective of the works by Banksy, the British Graffiti Artist, but not endorsed by the artist himself.
I am so glad that I had an unexpectedly fun-packed weekend in Budapest, just before we were all locked down with the pandemic. My last Airbnb guest was on the 1st March and he was a wonderful young man from London, Will Edden, a musical star from the Les Misérables and Oliver stage productions.
On the Sunday morning we agreed to walk the dog, so I could point out Szimpla Kert to him. This is how we came to notice the Banksy exhibition was being hosted by one of my favourite museums, The Electrotechnical Museum. A nostalgic ‘mad scientist’ kind of museum housed in one fantastic local example of Bauhaus architecture; it is definitely worth a visit in its own right.
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Banksy’s repertoire
The Tesla Loft is a venue at the back of the Museum courtyard. Both being Londoners, the exhibition piqued our interest, so we decided to pay it a visit.
Admission was a somewhat pricey 4,400 Ft. I must confess I’ve lived here for 20 years and have never paid that much for admission to a gallery. The fact that I had my dog with me did not present an issue as the lady on reception at the gallery informed us that dogs are welcome.
We were first ushered into a small film screening area with a looped short film about Bansky and his career; after which we then proceeded into the exhibition hall where there was a collection of works showing Banksy’s repertoire, which I must say produced a lot of chuckles from us. It was interesting to see the evolution of Banksy’s work.
Within minutes I knew that the artist himself had had no part in this exhibition because of the lack of quality of the works. They looked like very cheap photocopies, but that amused me – in a ‘Banksy’ kind of way. That someone has created this exhibition, just using the works of ‘Banksy’ and his elusive character.
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‘Illegal art’
Banksy has publicly stated that he neither curated nor gave consent to this exhibition, hence it being advertised as ‘illegal’. Saying that we did enjoy ourselves. The controversial aspects of the works, their poignancy, their portrayal of recent historic events, was stimulating and it was fun snapping selfies against the giant iconic image of a rioter throwing a bunch of flowers (I actually thought at that moment it would be more apt for the bunch of flowers to be a Black Plague ‘Nosegay’ with the Rioter wearing a surgical mask).
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The gift shop was a bit shoddy. You could spray paint your own T-shirt with the words ‘I’m Banksy’ which was fun to do but it was a lot to pay for a cheap, shapeless one-size-fits-all white T-shirt. Will liked it though and bought one, though perhaps more because he wanted an extra layer as protection against the fickle March weather.
I was disappointed. The shop could have done so much more and with better merchandise, they might not have to charge such a high entrance fee.
By Sylvia Llewelyn