TAMPA \u2014 For years, Michele Boersma, curator of a private collection of 160 works by the artist Banksy on display in Tampa, has traded emails with the artist\u2019s mysterious and notoriously strict authentication office known as Pest Control.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the only conduit for those without a direct relationship with Banksy to reach out to the artist, whose identity has never been confirmed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u201dm 99% sure there\u2019s a section of that correspondence that was directly with (Banksy),\u201d Boersma said. \u201cAt some point I\u2019m like, \u2018I\u2019m in my 50s, you\u2019re in your 50s, and we\u2019re emailing each other at 2 o\u2019clock at night. I know who I\u2019m talking to. Why are we playing this game?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
At first, the emails felt only contentious. Banksy, he said, had been actively trying to disrupt the traveling exhibition behind the scenes, pressuring collectors who\u2019d purchased pieces to not allow them into the show. Boersma, to get cooperation, agreed to cover the edition numbers on some artworks so that Pest Control wouldn\u2019t know whose they were.<\/p>\n
There were other attempts at disruption, Boersma said, without getting into details. \u201cIt involved (Banksy) involving his Hollywood friends and two very influential artists to try to stop us.\u201d<\/p>\n
That complicated relationship follows \u201cThe Art of Banksy\u201d to Tampa, running through Sept. 27 on the stage of Morsani Hall at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts. Visitors will walk through a temporary museum displaying prints, paintings, sculptures, sketches, stencils and ephemera owned by about 40 private collectors. Tickets start at $29.99 before fees.<\/p>\n
Banksy emerged from the graffiti scene in Bristol, England, in the \u201890s and gained attention in the 2000s as his darkly funny stencils appeared on walls across the world. His instantly recognizable attacks on war, authority, consumerism and inequality \u2014 and his hidden identity \u2014 created a phenomenon. Soaring auction prices, famous collectors and the Oscar-nominated documentary \u201cExit Through the Gift Shop\u201d put him at the center of the art world.<\/p>\n
The exhibition in Tampa includes familiar images such as \u201cGirl with Balloon\u201d and \u201cRude Copper,\u201d along with what its organizers call the original \u201cFlower Thrower,\u201d apparently made as a gift to one of Banksy\u2019s former girlfriends years before the image became internationally recognizable. Another featured work is a version of the \u201cMona Lisa\u201d that was purchased by actor Brad Pitt, returned to Banksy in 2022 and transformed into a new work that is now being publicly displayed in the United States for the first time.<\/p>\n
The show has traveled internationally for about a decade, but Tampa marks the first time it has been installed directly on a theater stage. Temporary walls were erected across the stage and orchestra pit area, creating a sort of maze where the art will be individually lit and rock music will play. Videos feature people from Banksy\u2019s past, including printmaker Ben Eine and former girlfriend Leonie Laws.<\/p>\n
Banksy did not curate, approve or authorize any of it.<\/p>\n
Pest Control declined to comment on specifics of \u201cThe Art of Banksy\u201d or Boersma\u2019s characterizations of their communication. In an email to the Tampa Bay Times signed \u201cPCO,\u201d the office only reiterated that the exhibition is \u201cwholly unofficial and unauthorized.\u201d<\/p>\n
But over the years, Boersma said, Banksy has stopped trying to disrupt the exhibition. And he has never condemned \u201cThe Art of Banksy\u201d publicly. That\u2019s not an endorsement, by any stretch, but to Boersma, it means something.<\/p>\n
He feels his exhibition, due to its effort to authenticate every artwork, has reached a sort of \u201cgentleman\u2019s agreement\u201d with the artist.<\/p>\n
Most of the works in the exhibition carry certificates of authenticity issued by Pest Control. Other pieces, such as personal sketches or gifts, fall into categories for which Banksy does not issue certificates. Those have been supported by provenance connecting them directly to Banksy or his associates, including correspondence, photographs and statements from their original owners.<\/p>\n
Boersma said the exhibition has turned down objects that looked convincing when he and other experts could not trace their histories.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe risk of us putting it on display and then it not being correct was just not worth it,\u201d Boersma said.<\/p>\n
The relationship with Pest Control shifted, Boersma said, when the office began pressing him to provide a list of works traveling under Banksy\u2019s name. Boersma initially refused, but it became clear to him they only wanted to make sure anything identified as a Banksy was actually made by Banksy \u2014 and that any work made by somebody else properly credited the real artist.<\/p>\n
That made Boersma realize they were, from different angles, trying to protect the same thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m taking a leap of faith,\u201d Boersma recalled writing. \u201cI\u2019ll send you the artwork list.\u201d It was, he said, \u201cthe beginning of us doing a dance of trusting each other.\u201d Pest Control, he said, will flag anything that isn\u2019t right.<\/p>\n
Pest Control did not confirm that arrangement to the Times.<\/p>\n
The producers are making some of that email correspondence part of the Tampa attraction. Visitors purchasing the VIP experience can enter a lounge displaying selections from the emails. The exhibition\u2019s website characterizes them as an ongoing dialogue about authenticity and intellectual property.<\/p>\n
Corey Ross, owner of Starvox Entertainment and a producer of the exhibition, said the presence of actual artwork is the main difference between \u201cThe Art of Banksy\u201d and competing attractions that rely heavily on enlarged scans, recreated images or immersive projections.<\/p>\n
Boersma, Ross said, spent years developing relationships with collectors and convincing them to let valuable and sometimes intensely personal objects travel.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis show, in a way, celebrates the collectors as much as it celebrates Banksy,\u201d Ross said.<\/p>\n
The works in this exhibition are not taken from streets or public walls, or works that were ever available to see for free, its producers say. They are objects Banksy sold or gave to people who now control where they are displayed. They also believe that as more artwork is stashed in storage containers to avoid taxes, awaiting the day it will be flipped for a big payoff, there\u2019s value in keeping it on display somewhere.<\/p>\n
Many of the lenders are not wealthy art investors, Boersma said. They are early admirers who bought prints when they cost 50 or 100 pounds or spent years of savings on a work before Banksy\u2019s market exploded. Some knew the artist personally. Others bought the art before his name alone could add hundreds of thousands of dollars to its value.<\/p>\n
The exhibition\u2019s early \u201cFlower Thrower\u201d offers the most personal example.<\/p>\n
Boersma said Banksy made the small work in 1997 as a Valentine\u2019s Day gift for Laws. In a filmed interview included in the exhibition, Laws recounts receiving it and later sending it to Pest Control while seeking formal authentication.<\/p>\n
The work was returned months later with its original personal message partly ground away and replaced. The exhibition will show visitors a scan of the reverse side, where remnants of the first inscription can still be seen.<\/p>\n
For Ross, an independently assembled retrospective can do something Banksy\u2019s own projects can\u2019t do. When Banksy creates an exhibition, it is typically a new artwork, not a history. \u201cThe Art of Banksy\u201d places pieces from different stages of his career together, alongside the stories of the people who acquired them.<\/p>\n
Museums generally have policies against staging a retrospective for a living artist without that artist\u2019s direct cooperation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen someone is as public and as political and as influential as Banksy has been,\u201d Ross said, \u201cthere\u2019s also a place and value for a third party to look at what his work is and to talk about it.\u201d Banksy is arguably the most famous living artist in the world.<\/p>\n
Tampa artist Leon Bedore, better known as Tes One, sees the absence of Banksy\u2019s permission as a disqualifying problem.<\/p>\n
Bedore, whose career has roots in graffiti, declined an invitation to walk through the exhibition before it opened.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason is that \u2018The Art of Banksy\u2019 is not an authorized exhibition of his work,\u201d Bedore wrote in an email. \u201cIt\u2019s just one of many exhibitions that tour and exploit his work for spectacle and profit.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re a fan of Banksy, I highly encourage you to seek out and experience his work where he originally placed it,\u201d he wrote. \u201cContext is key, and an unauthorized exhibition has none of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bedore acknowledged that this exhibition may not be as egregious as some others. Still, he objected to a business using the name and imagery of a living artist who continues to make and curate his own work, particularly when visitors will exit through a merchandise shop.<\/p>\n
Boersma believes visitors can understand the contradiction and still gain something from seeing the art.<\/p>\n
He said Banksy\u2019s direct images, political humor and visual jokes make him accessible to people who might feel intimidated in a conventional museum. Visitors may enter knowing only \u201cGirl with Balloon\u201d and leave with a broader sense of the artist\u2019s methods, relationships and career.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a black-and-white image in their mind,\u201d Boersma said, \u201cwe gave it color.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then they will exit through the gift shop.<\/p>\n
Ross said the exhibition plans to place a Banksy quotation near its merch: \u201cWe can\u2019t do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime, we should all go shopping to console ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether that makes the shop part of Banksy\u2019s joke or completely misses the point is up to the visitor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA \u2014 For years, Michele Boersma, curator of a private collection of 160 works by the artist Banksy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[144875,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-406013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-noindex","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}