Melbourne’s controversial Banksy exhibition, curated by Steve Lazarides and unaffiliated with the artist, has been the target of much criticism since it opened last month. The exhibition has a ticket price of $30, was organized without the artist’s permission, includes a gift shop full of un-authorized Banksy merch, and just generally smells of slick businessmen trying to make a quick buck off of Banksy’s name. But don’t take my word for it… just ask the artist who was commissioned to paint a mural outside of the show, or Australian street art critic Alison Young who noted that, at best, the show takes great work and installs and displays it poorly.
Then again, who wants to read, when you can watch a video that explains it all? CDH‘s latest installation, FAKESY, sums up everything that’s wrong with The Art of Banksy (the exhibition I mean, not Banksy’s art) and the art market in general. For the performance, CDH set up a stall selling fake Banksy art outside of the Melbourne exhibition. Watch what happens next…
Did you catch that? The part where CDH is told that he can’t be selling his Banksy forgeries because it’s not good for business at the Banksy exhibition… At least the exhibition organizers seem to be admitting that their gift shop is also full of forgeries. That’s progress, sort of.
Bless you, CDH, for perfectly capturing this ridiculousness.
Photo by Duncan Hull