With wry wit and stealth, Banksy merged graffiti art with installation and performance. Aside his famous street pieces, Banksy have hosted and took part in various shows and art festivities.
700-pound “Stop Esso” wall displayed on Los Angeles Existencilism show, 2002
Banksy’s first London exhibition is said to took place in Rivington Street in 2001, when he and fellow street artists convened in a tunnel near a pub. “We hung up some decorators’ signs nicked off a building site,” he later wrote, “and painted the walls white wearing overalls. We got the artwork up in 25 minutes and held an opening party later that week with beers and some hip-hop pumping out of the back of a Transit van. About 500 people turned up to an opening which had cost almost nothing to set up.”
Scroll down and enjoy these photos of Banksy’s participation in exhibitions in the early 2000’s.
Mural from Cans Festival, London, 2008
Cargo Exhibition on Rivington Street London, 2001
Banksy piece together Shepard Fairey’s posters in Berlin exhibition, 2003
Cargo Exhibition on Rivington Street London, 2001
The exhibition was held for only 2 weeks June 22nd – July 5th 2001. Very few images of this exhibition exist, with even fewer original flyers. Even though the exhibition was full of classic Banksy images.
Painting with googly eyes, Cans Festival, London, 2008
Banksy hosted an exhibition called The Cans Festival in London, over the weekend 3–5 May 2008. It was situated on Leake Street, a road tunnel formerly used by Eurostar underneath London Waterloo station. Graffiti artists with stencils were invited to join in and paint their own artwork, as long as it did not cover anyone else’s.
Roit Painting in Glasgow, 2002
Banksy in “Urban Discipline 2002” Exhibition at St. Pauli, Hamburg, German, 2002
Urban Discipline 2002 took place in a 1500 m² exhibition ground in the old Astra brewery in Hamburg, more than 30 artists from all over the world such as Banksy, Stak from France, Nami/La Mano from Spain, Nina, Herbert, Vitche, the Os Gemeos from Brazil and many others met to give evidence that some Graffiti is different to other Graffiti.
Banksy in “Urban Discipline 2002” Exhibition at St. Pauli, Hamburg, German, 2002
Banksy’s version of Mona Lisa, Glasgow, 2002
