Banksy’s “eco” street art in Monza

The climate emergency is at the heart of the works on display in Painting Walls, the exhibition project that opens tomorrow (June 30) at the Orangery of the Villa Reale in Monza. The exhibition, which can be visited until November 5 and curated by Sabina De Gregory, presents for the first time in Italy three fragments of the original wall painted by the enigmatic artist from Bristol, coming from private collections and created at different times in the 2000s. in London, Devon and Wales. MURALS BANKSY is published in Italy. The theme of the climate emergency is at the heart of each of these works, very dear to the street artist as well as the new generations, who are increasingly sensitive to and engaged with the social issues that Banksy narrates through his writing. . It is in fact the greetings of the working season that represent the exhibition, and feature in the event’s promotional poster: a symbolic denunciation of the pollution afflicting Port Talbot, the most polluted city in the UK; The protagonists of the painting are actually three teenagers with falling icicles in their arms, similar to the ash litter from a burning basket. To decorate the course of the exhibition there are two more walls: Heart Boy and Robot / Computer Boy, works “extracted” from the urban context to be welcomed into the halls of the Monza Museum Foundation. Banksy’s “sacred” street art It is precisely this profound deviation from its original context that, according to art historian Sabina Di Gregory, gives sanctity to Banksy’s works: these are works that could not have had the same impact and public recognition. This is the question the curator poses and poses to the audience a question: “The exhibition – for the first time in Italy – of three original and gigantic walls, weighing six tons, aims to astonish and confuse, and raises a question: is the real Banksy art perhaps compatible with his process of sanctification Or, would those few grams of paint have the same effect, if left, among thousands more, on nameless walls, where they were admired?

[Immagine
in apertura: Season’s Greetings, 2018. Vernice spray su muro
di mattoni. Brentwood (UK), Brandler Galleries]