Banksy at Bristol Museum

Monday morning I went to see the Banksy exhibit at the Bristol Museum. To be truthful I still remain unconvinced by the supposed artistic merit of the fellow and his ilk. I seem to remember Spike Milligan and unnumbered Punch cartoonists playing much the same game forty years and more ago. And then there was Terry Gilliam...

But that said the whole effect of the Bristol experience is impressive, particularly if you’re familiar with that museum. That, I think, was why I wanted to see it and why I was prepared to sit outside on the pavement for an hour and half to ensure I got in as soon as the place opened. I’ve been going to that museum regularly since 1972. It’s hardly the most exciting museum but it’s comforting, it’s welcoming, and it has a small collection of excellent pictures. It also has Alfred – the stuffed gorilla – who we used to go and talk to when we were tripping, the gypsy caravan, and the box plane hanging from the ceiling in the entrance hall.



That those items had been there so long, and basically unchanged, made this initiative so radical. As not only was it brilliant to see this prankster’s (admittedly slight) subversion of the collection, but to see so many people there; I’ve certainly never had to queue to get through the door before. And because you had to look carefully to see that you’d spotted all the jokes, and at times you really couldn’t be sure, it meant everyone was looking at everything very carefully. And that was what I found most heartening, along with the hope that some of them will think to go back again after this exhibit has gone.

And Alfred, as ‘a Bristol icon’ remained untouched, though the caravan had been clamped, and the plane had gained a pilot and the title ‘Escape From Guantanamo’.