New Banksy murals spring up in central London near Barbican

Criticism: The murals appeared to be a comment on the Barbican's attitude towards graffiti
PA
Sebastian Mann18 September 2017

Two new Banksy murals poking fun at the Barbican Centre have sprung up in central London.

Work by the elusive street artist appeared in a tunnel near the arts hub ahead of an exhibition by American painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, who began his career daubing graffiti in New York.

Banksy described the murals as an "(unofficial) collaboration" in a series of Instagram posts.

Alongside an image on Instagram of the first work - a Ferris wheel - Banksy wrote: "Major new Basquiat show opens at the Barbican - a place that is normally very keen to clean any graffiti from its walls."

The second mural, which bears a likeness to Basquiat's 1982 work Boy and Dog in a Johnnypump, is captioned: "Portrait of Basquiat being welcomed by the Metropolitan Police - an (unofficial) collaboration with the new Basquiat show."

New work: People pass the mural near the Barbican Centre
PA

It is the artist’s latest major work since he painted a Brexit-inspired mural on a wall in Dover.

Banksy - In pictures

New Banksy artworks
1/67

The work, which appeared on the end of a row of terraces, shows a workman chipping away at one of the stars on the EU flag.

Basquiat: Boom for Real opens at the Barbican Centre on Wednesday.

It has been described by the Barbican as the "first large-scale exhibition in the UK of the work of (the) American artist", who died in 1988 at the age of 27 from a suspected drug overdose.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Sign up you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy notice .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT