BANKSY UNIVERSE | MANILA 2024
14 May 2024 -
29 December 2024
2F South Gallery
After first emerging in Bristol in the United Kingdom during the 90s, Banksy’s stencils, murals, and paintings have since appeared stealthily in major cities, tackling a variety of themes. Images of police officers engaging in illegal acts popped up without warning around the streets of London. Large-scale rats wearing human clothing multiplied on the buildings of New York. And a bevy of cats, flowers, and children suddenly surfaced on the now crumbling walls of Gaza. Banksy’s satirical and poetic commentary, almost always political, has drawn significant attention and sparked discourse all over the world. And these works in public spaces speak not only for the places in which they were painted; they echo the shared realities of people living in the same universe as his.
Often polarizing, the practice and works of Banksy invoke alternative responses from public institutions and private entities alike. Banksy’s artistic milieu involves - and complicates- the private and the public by way of graffiti, an age-old graphic form of expression. Today, depending on one’s socio-political leanings, graffiti is regarded as either scourge or blessing. For authorities, graffiti is the bane that leaves a scar on our spaces; for progressives, it is a potent and swift intervention. For Banksy, what truly is most damaging to our cities are the corporate establishments that plaster giant slogans and advertisements across building walls and billboards, filling people’s brains with consumerist paradigms. Banksy wages his battles in these same spaces — by using the same walls to reject these ideals.
Over the past three decades, Banksy has sustained a level of influence and has evolved along, as well as through, the issues that he contextualizes in his works. This influence has moreover allowed his art and the messages contained within to permeate the discussions found within the confines of the academe and many other institutions around the world. Through his body of work, Banksy has raised consciousness among a larger community of artists dealing with similar issues in their own cities. His murals have gained international renown, turning into universal symbols of protest and serving as inspiration to street artists all over the world.
Banksy Universe | Manila 2024 at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila serves as an opportunity to deliver the artist’s message to the wider Filipino public eye. The exhibition mines the many piercing social, political, and domestic concerns that Banksy’s art raises, and spotlights issues otherwise censored in other public spaces such as war, genocide, capitalism, and abuse. Organized around distinct themes and locations, the exhibit follows Banksy’s art found in specific parts of the world, and explores the universality of these seemingly isolated issues. In light of the series of events unfolding around the world, the exhibition is a timely invitation to the public to reflect on the sweeping messages of Banksy’s works and see how much of it can also speak to Philippine society.
NOTE: It’s almost impossible to see Banksy’s original art outside the specific locations in which they were created. BANKSY UNIVERSE | MANILA 2024 is a unique opportunity to learn more about Banksy’s art and explore the universality of the many piercing social, political, and domestic issues it raises.
While BANKSY UNIVERSE | MANILA 2024, like many such exhibitions in museums around the world, is not authorized or endorsed by Banksy, it will feature a significant number of works that trace the trajectory of Banksy’s career, affording visitors a closer look into the themes that preoccupy him, as well as the transformative power of art.