A new Banksy Museum is opening on Canal Street this month
Following a slew of pop-ups and stand-alone exhibits, elusive England-based street artist Banksy is getting the New York City museum treatment: The Banksy Museum is set to debut at 227 Canal Street by Broadway on May 15.
According to an official press release, the space will display over 160 works by the artist—from his instantly recognizable street art to studio pieces, videos and animated visuals—making this "the largest display of Banksy work ever seen in a single setting."
Similar destinations have already debuted in Barcelona, Brussels, Kraków and Paris, all of them projects by Hazis Vardar, also the brainchild behind the famous Palace Nightclub in France.
"Street art belongs in the raw setting of the streets," said Vardar in an official statement. "But if people can't see it, is it even art? Little of Banksy's works are visible to the public at large. Most have been stolen for resale, inadvertently destroyed, or erased by overzealous city cleaning teams. Most of this transient art could only be viewed on tiny smartphone screens, which is no way to experience the scale or emotion of Banksy’s work. So we knew that we needed to create an exhibition that would bring Banksy’s art back before the public."
To do the work justice, the creators of the museum created a space that "reflects the street experience" and employed a number of anonymous street artists to recreate Banksy's work. That is all to say: what you'll see on the walls and propped up for display won't necessarily be Banksy's own work but celebratory recreations of both iconic and lesser known pieces.
Tickets for the museum, which will be open daily from 10am to 8pm, are available right here. The exhibit spans the second and third floors of the building and, according to the press release, takes about an hour to be seen in totality—although you are encouraged to take in all the pieces at your own pace.
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