Big news! World renowned graffiti big bucks superstar Banksy is going to have an artshow on the 13th of June! That’s all that’s up. Details to follow. UPDATE: it’s Banksy vs Bristol Museum. Video preview below. UPDATE 2: Pictures of the show via Juxtapoz added! UPDATE 3 Pictures of the show via S. Butterfly added!

Banksy versus Bristol Museum / June 13th – August 31st / Bristol Museum / Queen’s Road, Bristol / Open daily, 10am – 5pm / Free Entry

Also now we’ve got video from the BBC who’ve taken a little walk through the museum and’ve spoken with one of the supposedly TWO people who knew about the 3 month long exhibition. She says it’s lovely irony.

Graffiti artist Banksy has pulled off an audacious stunt amid tight secrecy to stage his biggest ever exhibition. A burned-out ice-cream van is among 100 works Banksy has installed at Bristol’s museum, replacing many of the museum’s regular artefacts. The reason the museum was closed was kept secret from top council officials.

Banksy said: “This is the first show I’ve ever done where taxpayers’ money is being used to hang my pictures up rather than scrape them off.” Staged in the council-owned City Museum and Art Gallery, Banksy v Bristol Museum features animatronics, installations and a sensory display.

“This show is my vision of the future, to which many people will say: ‘You should have gone to Specsavers’”, Banksy added. The exhibition and its location have been a closely-guarded secret since October, with just a couple of museum officials in the loop. “I think we may have dragged them down to our level rather than being elevated to theirs,” said Banksy of the subterfuge involved in staging the show in his home city.

‘Megastar’

Museum director Kate Brindley said it was a huge relief to finally be able to talk about the exhibition, and admitted they had taken a “risk”. Plans for the summer show were kept from Bristol City Council chiefs until Friday – the day before it was due to open. Bristol has had a love-hate relationship with Banksy since he started stencilling on the city’s walls in the 1990s. There is likely to be criticism of the decision to stage an official expo of his work.

“We ran a bit of a risk,” said Ms Brindley, “but we knew that it was just the right thing for the city. “Equally there’s so many people in Bristol who just love Banksy, and internationally. He’s a megastar.

“We’re a gallery that wants to work with contemporary artists – he’s our home-grown hero.”

The artist himself was involved in setting up the exhibits and came to the museum to oversee its installation, but staff were unaware who he was among the crew setting up the show. Although Bristol has seen work by Banksy adorn the city’s walls, this is his first official indoor exhibition in the city since 2000. That show was held at the Severnshed restaurant on the waterfront and featured several paintings which have since gone on to sell for thousands of pounds at auction.

Banksy has exhibited in New York, Los Angeles and Bethlehem. He became famous after a series of “guerrilla” stunts which saw him paint the West Bank barrier and put an inflatable figure of a Guantanamo Bay prisoner at Disney World.

It was Bristol where he first made his mark though, with a series of graffiti paintings on iconic local buildings such as the city council headquarters, an M32 bridge and the Thekla floating nightclub. His work has since become highly collectable, and has attracted buyers including Brad Pitt and Robbie Williams.

More from Juxtapoz magazine:

Banksy Show Re-Cap from Richard Scarry in Bristol
Wednesday, 17 June 2009

What better way to engage the diverse great British public in arts and culture than filling an Edwardian Museum in Bristol with a collection of Banksy sculptures, paintings, stencils, animatronics, ceramics and installations?

The hours wait to get in this free exhibition was worth every minute. Entering the main hall we were confronted with 6 large-scale classical sculptures recreated with a sense of irony, humour and social commentary. One of the main attractions for us was the gallery filled to the brim with stencils including a pixelated self-portrait of Banksy himself.

Throughout the Museum, Banksy has nestled his exhibits amongst the permanent collections. Reinterpretations of old masters with political statements, modern ceramics with a twist and British fairground nostalgia all combine make this a great experience. This was an Easter Egg hunt to die for and museum staff weren’t giving anything away.”

This is a must see exhibition for anyone in the UK this summer. –Richard Scarry and the Chipster.

Banksy Versus Bristol Museum runs from June 13th through August 31, 2009.
The Bristol Museum is open from 10am to 5pm daily. Admission is free.

Photos below by BBC, then Richard Scarry and the Chipster, then S. Butterfly. Check out S Butterfly for LOTS of amazing show photos, graffiti art and beyond!