Not all art is equal.

There is a museum in Krakow that only exhibits Banksy’s street art, and it is interesting on so many levels. It is situated in an old factory in Kazimiercz, and it is the ideal space for such a collection – concrete walls, around 30 spacious rooms with perfect lighting for display, and really well written synopses of the works. However none of the art pieces were done by Banksy, they are all replicas.

Banksy is of course a pseudonym, the artist himself is famously anonymous. The only dealer licenced to sell original works is a company called Pest Control, and they refused to allow the curators to contact the artist. So copies it is.

There are videos of famous Banksy moments – the shredder slicing a recently purchased piece at Southerby’s – it sold at auction for around $3 million, and the mutilated piece is now worth 10 times that. It showed a film of the stall holder on a NY street with real Banksys for sale, he sold 3 in 12 hours, and took in $43. And it played a documentary of his Walled-Off hotel project in Gaza.

His art can be funny, poignant, or biting – sometimes all three. He has a gift for placing his work on/in the most appropriate of settings- outside jails, inside hospitals, even on the Gaza side of the wall that encloses part of the Gaza Strip.  With a resonating commentary on so many  modern issues – poverty, violence, the internet, isolationist politics, and so on, he stretches our thinking. Yes, the exhibition was truly thought-provoking. But none of it was his.

Or maybe it was?  Perhaps Banksy’s yet again is playing with the way we view the world, or at least the way we consider art. Now I’m wishing I’d bought one of his signed prints from the gift shop!

After all, not all art is equal.