New York City is now home to a new museum experience dedicated to the England-based anonymous street artist Banksy.
The Banksy Museum opened in Soho, NYC this week. It houses the largest collection of Banksy’s life-sized murals and artworks in the world, according to the website.
“Visitors will discover the master of street art in a comprehensive and immersive experience,” the website adds.
More than 160 works by Banksy have been recreated by a team of anonymous street artists for the new exhibition, as many of the original pieces have been damaged or erased.
“This exhibition and the Banksy Museum give a new lease of life to Banksy’s street creations – as many of them have disappeared,” the website says.
“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,” said museum founder Hazis Vardar in a statement.
“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,” he added. “So we knew that we needed to create an exhibition that would bring Banksy’s art back before the public.”
In addition to street art, the museum features some of Banksy’s studio work, as well as video of his actual works.
More than 160 Banksy works recreated
“Street art belongs in the raw setting of the streets,” said Vardar. “But if people can’t see it, is it even art?”
Before debuting in NYC, the Banksy Museum popped up at venues in Paris, Barcelona, Kraków and Brussels.
“Banksy has had a tremendous presence in the New York art scene for the last decade, and so to honor his work, New York was chosen as a flagship production,” William Meade, the Banksy Museum’s executive director, told Forbes.
The Banksy Museum can be found at 277 Canal St. at Broadway.
