Cover image: Banksy
The premiere of “The Art of Banksy” takes place in Istanbul on January 14. The biggest collection of Banksy’s works welcomes art enthusiasts at Global Karaköy. The exhibition curated by Steve Lazarides features 100 works borrowed from the artist’s private collection as well as his collectors and the viewers experience the artworks in various spatial arrangements selected from England. But why is Banksy so important? What is street art? We want to remember it with an overview.
The first examples of graffiti consist of slogans depicted with simple lines on walls and from this viewpoint its history goes back as far as WWII. Street Art was born with the works of artists who wanted to be independent from the art networks of museums and galleries for a direct artwork-viewer encounter. It was in its beginning stages during 1960s, it reached maturity in 1970s and particularly in 1980s it became a rising star in New York.
This genre which is in close relationship to the social developments of its era, aims at provoking, reacting, catching up with the present day and giving messages to the masses.
Thanks to the experiments by artists including Keith Haring, Jean Michel Basquiat, Richard Hambleton and René Moncada during 1980s, street art distanced itself from text and gained a more painterly structure.
In the 21st century, Street Art began to enter into museums and art fairs, to find widespread visibility in galleries, in other words, to become part of and be domesticated by the art scene dynamics that it criticizes, which became the central topic of very ardent debates. Banksy, on the other hand, is probably the only contemporary artist gaining the star status next to Jeff Koons or Ai Weiwei and whose name is well known even to those not particularly interested in the subject. Make sure you see Banksy’s works, and we strongly recommend you to read the biographical book at our Artlog library before you visit the show.
Discover our graffiti artist, Cins
