Tampa Bay Times27%
Three things to look for at ‘The Art of Banksy’ in Tampa 9%
By Christopher Spata51%
7/30/2026, 7:56:50 AM
Topics: Art Exhibitions, Street Art
BS Summary: This article contains 14 faulty reasoning types, including Ambiguity (Equivocation), Appeal to Authority, and Framing Effect, with Post Hoc (False Cause) as the most egregious example at 8.4% saturation with 51 hits. Analysis detected 364 faulty-reasoning hits from 608 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 22.7% and a BS Rank of 9% (21,642 of 23,572 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 91.80% of the article peer group.
" The Art of Banksy " opens Friday at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts in Tampa .
The exhibition, which has been traveling internationally and growing in scope for more than a decade, brings along 160 privately owned pieces and bills itself as the “largest authenticated Banksy collection in the world.”
Banksy is arguably the world’s most famous living artist.
While there has been speculation and credible investigations , the artist’s true identity remains secret.
The exhibition has been mounted in spaces such as empty munitions factories and department stores.
Tampa marks the first time it’s on a stage.
Banksy’s authentication office, Pest Control, confirmed to the Tampa Bay Times that the exhibition is “wholly unofficial and unauthorized.”
The exhibition’s curator, Michel Boersma stressed that nothing on display was taken from the street or was ever available to see publicly for free.
They are objects Banksy sold or gave to people, Boersma said, and those people now control where they are displayed, If you’re visiting the exhibition, here are three pieces to look out for.Boersma said Banksy anonymously handed out these placards during a major antiwar demonstration in London.
Participants did not initially know they were Banksys, he said, and many threw them away afterward because the wooden handles were unusually heavy.
A few people, however, recognized what they were and saved them.
The exhibition has all three images from the set, and Boersma said they still show traces of where the handles were attached.
The pieces connect Banksy’s political art, anonymity and the accidental way some now-valuable pieces survived.
“Art of Banksy” producer Corey Ross called Banksy’s altered Mona Lisa the “climax of the show.”
He said Banksy created the work and sold it to Brad Pitt, though he did not reveal the current owner.
The piece is relatively new to the touring collection and it’s believed that Tampa will mark its first public exhibition in the United States.
The piece, which has a certificate of authentication from Pest Control, was originally painted on wood.
Years ago, the owner sent the Mona Lisa back to Banksy, who added a spray-painted mesh layer over the original wooden panel, giving it new dimension.“
Don’t go and stand in front of it,” Boersma said.
“You need to see it slightly at the right.”“
Flower Thrower,” also known as “Love Is in the Air,” is one of Banksy’s most famous images, depicting a masked protester hurling a bouquet instead of a weapon.
Most know it as a stencil mural painted on a wall near Bethlehem in 2003.
Curator Michel Boersma describes a small wooden work in the exhibition as “the original ‘Flower Thrower,’” given by Banksy to his then-girlfriend Leonie Laws as a Valentine’s Day gift seven years before the familiar image appeared publicly.
He said Laws later sent it to Pest Control seeking authentication and received it back nine months later with its original personal inscription apparently ground away.Years later, Boersma said, another former girlfriend revealed at a London exhibition opening that Banksy had given her a blue version on the same Valentine’s Day.
Hers bore the message “I fancy you” — the same words Boersma said had originally appeared on Laws’ work.
The Tampa exhibition includes a scan of the reverse showing where that inscription was removed.Boersma recalled one of the girlfriends saying to him, “He’s a great artist, but was not a very good boyfriend.”
The Art of BanksyAdmission starting at $29.99.
Runs Wednesdays through Sundays, July 31 to Sept 27.
Hours vary.
Straz Center for the Performing Arts, 1010 N Macinnes Place, Tampastrazcenter.org
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