This Saturday and Sunday, Pictures on Walls will be hosting their first annual “Open Day” (which is actually two open days). As the title says, here’s 5 reasons why I expect to see you there (assuming you live in this country, plane ride might be a bit much for a Banksy print).
1. New Banksy print being sold in a lottery system. Everybody gets a shot at the tesco image. This alone should get a line of people back into the Old Street tube station.
2. New Vhils print being signed in person with inscription to avoid ebay flippers. His work is top quality, and people won’t be forgetting his work at Cans Festival for a long time. If the world were fair, getting access to this should be as in demand as the Banksy print.
3. New Micallef prints. No more “Bomber Girl” prints here. “Bethlehem” looks great (though we’ve yet to see any high-res images). These are also going through a lottery system, so hopefully that means fewer flippers, but I doubt it.
4. Some kind of legal stenciling. I’ll be bringing some stuff down for sure, and maybe this will be like the Cans free stencil area and some real talent will show up as well.
5. Umm, it’s a two-day long street art party and everyone’s invited. Did I really need the rest of the list?
In short, this is one of the best shows of the year. Adam Neate has plenty of work to blow people away, and group shows like White Noise (last night at Black Rat) have some great variety, but all of these shows have a piece or two that just aren’t that great. The general consensus Thursday though was that people would be happy to have any of the pieces. There wasn’t a single piece that people looked at and said, “well, maybe that’s not for me.” Even the weaker pieces for this show would be highlights at almost any group show. 
