Banksy appears in Venice (and in person)
While Banksy's works belonging to private collections (and in an unauthorized manner) are exhibited in Malaga, he escapes from his visitors by exposing himself in one of the cities where tourism has made the biggest dent: ** Banksy "shows his face" in Venice.**
As always, we become aware of these artistic actions through his website and his Instagram. Because otherwise, none of the passers-by could see, observe and recognize who it really was. As if it were a painter or portraitist of the busiest streets in the world, Banksy appears placing his installation before the attentive gaze of the neighbors.
Afterwards, he sits down, covering his face with a newspaper (of course) and surrounded by his work. Or better, of a set of works . A mosaic of paintings that show, in its entirety, the city of Venice completely invaded by a large cruise ship. In the lower left corner, the message: 'Venice in oil'.
Because yes, it is a great oil. And it is also a Venice flooded with oil from the large ship fuel that dock daily in the city leaving pollution and, of course, tourists in their wake.
This week we reflected on the supposed good number of visitors to the Louvre during 2018, a historical record of 10,200,000 tourists who passed through the doors of the Parisian museum in one year. Ten million. The overcrowding of tourism is not a problem: it is an international crisis.
We do not stop seeing how different destinations impose tourist taxes, reduce the entrance to certain monuments, even natural parks... It is unstoppable.
Miguel Angel Cajigal (The Barroquist), who started a thread about this 'overpopulation' of museums under his hashtag ** #HisteriadelArte, comments to Traveler.es:**
" It is a mixture of factors. In those very touristic cities, very famous monuments or crowded museums, this confluence of factors is ruining the tourist experience itself . It is no longer just that we professionals in the cultural sector get serious to say that there are too many people in that museum or that cathedral and that this causes problems (for example, of conservation). Because they seldom pay attention to us. The problem is that even the tourist public is beginning to associate some places (Louvre, Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel, Venice, Taj Mahal...) with low-quality experiences. Because of course, they sell you the photo of the Sistine in the magazine and you don't see anything there and you get 40 stomping feet because there are more people than in Sanfermines".
And this is what Banksy denounces in the epitome city of tourist overcrowding. In the video, passers-by observe it, comment on it, share it (that lady who calls the cruise ship “monster!”, or that man in a beret nodding fervently at the menacing cruise on the fragile gondolas...) .
Always calling attention to the conflict and trying to move. Tourism remains one of his recurring themes, as when in 2015 he opened ** Dismaland in Weston-super-Mare ** (Somerset), his reinterpretation of amusement parks. Here darkness, terror and discomfort will follow you from attraction to attraction.
Another of his most memorable installations, the opening of The Walled Off Hotel in 2017, the accommodation with the worst views in the world (which you can book here). Of its ten rooms, seven of them decorated by Banksy, and all their windows facing the same reality: the Israeli wall in the West Bank, some views of concrete and concertinas.
The hotel is located in the Israeli zone but works by Palestinian artists are exhibited inside, creating an artistic dialogue that does not occur outside this area.
Worst hotel views in the world
That is exactly what Banksy intends with his work, no entrance fees or gates separating your work from the public : create a dialogue, generate discomfort, produce a reflection. And for this, he always acts in the right place, in the core of the problem.
It is not trivial that this work of works has appeared in ** Venice , a city that is currently celebrating its Biennale**. Banksy explains: “Preparing my position at the Venice Biennale. Despite being one of the biggest and most prestigious art events in the world, for some reason, I've never been invited."
They never invited him and, furthermore, after his attempted foray into the world of "conventional" art, the only thing he got was for the Venetian policemen to throw him out of the place... which he left dragging his work while a large sea horn warns us: there is a cruise ship observing the scene.
The cruise as a symbol of touristification