Banksy- London Street Art at the Barbican Centre

The early hours of Sunday morning, 17th September 2017 saw the walls of London graced with not one but two new street artworks from the elusive British street artist Banksy. 

The stencil artist shared the two pieces on his official verified Banksy instagram account at 2pm this afternoon announcing the new works and hinting at their location near to the Barbican Centre in central London.

Two new London Banksy artworks
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As we are based in East London, we grabbed our camera bag and jumped on a bus towards the Barbican shortly after spotting the London Banksy works online, to capture some images of the new street artworks.

After a quick 15-minute bus trip we took a short walk around the Barbican site on our arrival trying to track down the new works. From the photos Banksy had shared we knew the works we located on the ground level of the site and it wasn't long before we located the two new London Banksy works on opposite walls on Golden Lane right beneath the Barbican Centre.


Banksy London Street Art at the Barbican Centre, London

  • Close up of the first of two new Banksy in London artworks inspired by artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Banksy Street Art in London at the Barbican Centre
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The two works by Banksy have been inspired by pioneering New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and the show Boom For Real which opened at the Barbican a week after Banksy created the two new street artworks. 

According to a series of posts shared on the official Banksy Instagram account this afternoon, Banksy has said: ‘Major new Basquiat show opens at the Barbican - a place that is normally very keen to clean any graffiti from its walls.”

The larger of the two works references Basquiat’s painting ‘Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump’ and sees a character representing Basquiat being searched by the police. In another of his Instagram posts featuring the above work Banksy, has said the pieces is a ‘“Portrait of Basquiat being welcomed by the Metropolitan Police - an (unofficial) collaboration with the new Basquiat show.”

Two Banksy artworks spray-painted in London at the Barbican Centre

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Two Banksy artworks spray-painted in London at the Barbican Centre

The paint on the larger of the two London Banksy artworks was still wet in parts to touch when we arrived this afternoon to shoot the artwork, suggesting that it was installed in the early hours of the morning.

London Banksy Street Art at the Barbican Centre

Ferris Wheel London Banksy at the Barbican Centre
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The second smaller new artwork from Banksy is located opposite the larger work on the other side of the road and sees a white/ silver on black paint stencil of a queue of people waiting to buy tickets from a booth for the Ferris wheel.

The Ferris wheel carriages have been replaced with crowns rendered in chalk, a symbol which frequently featured in his early works.

London Banksy Street Art at the Barbican Centre

  • Close up detail of the Ferris wheel booth and the chalk crowns.

Street art stencil works appear in London at the Barbican by artist Banksy

  • It's wasn't long before word got out and large crowds began to gather in front of the wall to photograph the latest London Banksy street artwork at the Barbican Centre.

We streamed some live video footage of the two new Banksy works on our Hookedblog twitter account on our arrival at the Barbican Centre this afternoon, if you missed the live stream you can rewatch the short clip with some of the details above.

Boom For Real Basquiat Exhibition
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The Boom For Real exhibition was the first large-scale exhibition in the UK of the work of American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960—1988), one of the most significant painters of the 20th century.

The show featured over 100 of Basquiat's works on loan from international museums and private collections and included rare film, photography, and archive material.

Fresh London Banksy works appear at the Barbican Centre, London. #streetart #Banksy #Hookedblog
 Fresh London Banksy works appear at the Barbican Centre, London. #streetart #Banksy #Hookedblog

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Revisiting the London Banksy now under perspex

London Banksy 2020 Update
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Since first photographing the London Banksy stencil works at the Barbican back in 2017 when the two stencil pieces appeared we had not revisited the works. Shortly after the Banksy works first appeared, US artist and actor Danny Minnick added some of his own work to the left of the Banksy artwork.

As if often the case with Banksy artworks in the UK, the Barbican Centre Board decided to keep the Banksy artworks and both were covered with a protective layer of perspex. The additional artwork added to the piece by Danny Minnick has also been included under the perspex layer cover the wall.

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