Banksy work goes on display at Bristol’s City Museum & Art Gallery
Tuesday, 7th April 2009
A painting by famous street artist Banksy will go on display at Bristol’s City Museum & Art Gallery this weekend. It is the first time that work by the Bristol artist has been displayed at the museum.
The canvas, entitled London New York Bristol (Monkey), depicts a monkey riding a bomb like a surfer and has been loaned to the museum by a private collector. It is a canvas version of an image, which he sprayed onto the whitewashed wall of a railway tunnel in Shoreditch, London in 2000. It was Banksy’s first (unofficial) London exhibition and he sprayed a total of 12 paintings onto the walls. At the time, visitors could order a canvas version, and it is one of these that has been lent to the museum.
Banksy, one of the world's best-known graffiti artists, keeps his identity secret. He was born near 
Bristol and his graffiti started appearing across the city in the early 1990s. He found the perfect medium in the use of stencils, both for speed of painting and the political feel they give his images: ‘As soon as I cut my first stencil, I could feel the power there. The ruthlessness and efficiency of it is perfect.’
In 1999 he painted his famous ‘The Mild Mild West’ in Stokes Croft and at the end of that year he moved to London.
The display ties in with the exhibition, Crimes of Passion at nearby Royal West of England Academy. It is a major show of new work by the city’s most renowned and successful graffiti and street artists.
London New York Bristol (Monkey) will be available for visitors to view from Thursday 9 April in the modern art gallery of Bristol’s City Museum & Art Gallery, Queen’s Road, Bristol BS8 1RL. Free entry, open daily 10am-5pm.
