Banksy kept under spare bed to go on display in Salford

by techlowdown · 5 October 2022

The Art of Banksy

A Banksy that has spent most of its time wrapped in a blanket under its owner’s spare bed is to go on display for the first time in a decade.

Leopard and Barcode was offered to the organisers of The Art of Banksy after the show, which opens on 21 October in Salford’s MediaCityUK, was announced.

Banksy originally created it on a house near Bristol in 1999 or 2000 and it was saved by a local architect in 2010.

The exhibition’s curators said it was a “privilege” to be able to show it.

The work depicts a leopard walking away from a barcode, which has been made to look like a cage with its bars bent.

Three versions of Girl With Balloon (2002)

A spokesman for the exhibition said the anonymous artist sprayed it “on the side of a house in Nailsea” near his home city of Bristol and had been “destined to be lost forever when the house was scheduled for demolition in 2010”.

However, he said a local architect had “spotted its significance and got permission to save the artwork, spending a day chiselling it off the wall”.

He said the work had spent most of the time since “wrapped in a blanket under the architect’s spare bed” and had been shown only once “at the local school where his wife worked”.

He added that the owner, who wished to remain anonymous, offered it to the exhibition in Salford after it was announced and as a late inclusion, it would be shown a little differently to the rest of the exhibits.

“In keeping with the ethos of having street art free to view by the public, Leopard and Barcode will be displayed in the foyer of The Art of Banksy, giving the public the opportunity to come and enjoy it free of charge,” he said.

The show, which has previously been held in a number of locations around the world, will bring together 145 authenticated works by the artist, including well-known pieces like Girl With Balloon (2002), Flower Thrower (2003) and Rude Copper (2002).

It will also include Brace Yourself (2010), a work which Banksy gifted to the band formerly known as Exit Through the Gift Shop in exchange for the rights to their name.