Famously anonymous British artist Banksy may have set up shop unannounced at the Venice Biennale arts exhibition — and was booted from the piazza because he didn’t have a permit. Video was posted Wednesday to Banksy’s verified Instagram account of a man — likely the guerrilla artist himself, although his face is obscured — displaying a series of paintings of a large cruise ship in the famed canal entitled, “Venice in oil.”
Image: A montage of oil paintings entitled "Venice in oil" portraying a massive cruise ship surrounded by tiny Venetian gondola boats. AFP/Getty Images
Famously anonymous British artist Banksy may have set up shop unannounced at the Venice Biennale arts exhibition — and was booted from the piazza because he didn’t have a permit.
Video was posted Wednesday to Banksy’s verified Instagram account of a man — likely the guerrilla artist himself, although his face is obscured — displaying a series of paintings of a large cruise ship in the famed canal entitled, “Venice in oil.”
Then, local police show up and appear to tell him he can’t stay there because he didn’t have a permit to operate a stall, prompting him to pack up and leave, CNN reported.
A montage of oil paintings entitled "Venice in oil" portraying a massive cruise ship surrounded by tiny Venetian gondola boats. AFP/Getty Images
As he wheels away his artwork, a cruise ship is shown in the background, towering over a row of gondolas.
“Setting out my stall at the Venice Biennale,” the artist captioned the Instagram video. “Despite being the largest and most prestigious art event in the world, for some reason I’ve never been invited.”
The paintings appear to highlight the over-tourism controversy in the Italian city — where cruise ships play a role in the problem, CNN reported.
Back in 2013, Bansky made the Big Apple his canvas for 31 days — adorning numerous outdoor locations with his artwork.
He returned last year with a stencil of a rat on a clock at the old East Village Bank building at West 14th Street and Sixth Avenue.
Anna Melnykova, "Palace of Labor (palats praci), architector I. Pretro, 1916", shot with analog Canon camera, 35 mm Fuji film in March 2022.
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