Free to See - Exhibition of Banksy Paintings & Murals - Billionaires Welcome To Buy! And Would-be Billionaires!

Getting to Banksy via Bank Station

Directions from Bank station to the Royal Exchange. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

I recommend a visit to see Banksy paintings at the Red8 Gallery in the Royal Exchange near Bank station in the historic city of London. Seeing Banksy may cost more time than you expected - firstly allow twenty minutes for the seven to ten minute walk from Bank station, Underground. I went up 14 stairs, along a corridor, an escalator, another corridor, another long escalator, past the wide entrance to the Elizabeth line, Another corridor, a circular corridor past numerous exits at which point the Royal Exchange is marked as Exit 3. Out of the exit; you are faced with a magnificent building, Britain at its best. 

The Royal Exchange

Royal Exchange, London, exterior, photo by Angela Lansbury, copyright.

Yes, you can enter the Royal Exchange, even if you are a mere pleb. Inside is a shopping mall, with the glamorous bar of Fortnum and Mason in the centre. 

The welcoming and helpful doorman courteously walked me to the right hand exit where I turned left, following his smiling and nodding instructions. As he had told me, only a few paces brought me to my target, the delightful Red8 gallery. 

Red 8 Gallery

The frontage is  a window, and  inside around the ground floor are sensible sized Banksy paintings which you could hang on any wall in any office or public building or home. 

For details on the red8 name see the previous post.

Prices

To find more details and prices if you are interested in buying, hold your phone up to capture the QR code by each picture. I didn't do so. I was too busy discussing the paintings.

Discussing Banksy

Upstairs is another room with framed paintings all around. You can spend an hour here, enjoying looking at each one, guessing the implications, and discussing with your spouse or companions what the symbols and absurdities signify.

Not everyone agrees with Banksy's political opinions. 'T' said, "I don't agree with all his views. He is anti war. One of his dividing wall murals, he has scrawled the word Palestine. Wars tend to have a baddie against a goody and the goodies have to fight, or the baddies take over the world. We might agree repression is bad. He is also saying which side he is on. Not everybody would agree.

"But you must admire his skill. Every picture captures your attention. They are so realistic. He captures the people."

Prices

What if you want one? I did not see any affordable postcards, unlike London's national and modern gallery shops. I discussed prices with a PR person, a visitor, who was considering buying one. He said: "I am interested purely from an investment point of view. Now that I am retired, I buy items as an investment and sell them. I bought one of the Banksy paintings and the price doubled. It was a good investment."

I went there on opening night. I was probably invited because I am a blogger and a journalist. But you could have signed up online, another guest told me. 

Banksy is not the only artist available. On their website you can see prints at three hundred pounds and up.

Banksy pictures in the gallery. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Fair Cop

Cop in London outside Banksy exhibition. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Outside was a benign British bobby. (For any American readers, a bobby is a cop.) He was happy to be photographed with me. I wasn't sure whether he was protecting the paintings, the people at the gallery, passers-by from drunks, drunks from traffic, or the passageway along the pavement. Or was he just curious to see the picture of the cop by Banksy? I didn't dare to ask.

Useful Websites

Email address: info@redeightgallery.com

The exhibition is open to the public from today until the 15th September 2022.

https://tfl.gov.uk/plan-a-journey/

https://www.redeightgallery.com/key-reasons-why-art-prints-are-worth-your-investment/

See previous post on the Red Eight Gallery.

Please share links to your favourite posts

Banksy Near Bank Station = what does Red Eight Mean?

Banksy Exhibition in London

 From tomorrow, Saturday August 26th, 2022, you will be able to see a Banksy exhibition near Bank station in London. (London, England, UK, for anybody in the USA or Canada, who thinks of London , Canada, where my forwarded post went when I left the USA to live in England and various PR agencies sent my post to London, without specifying which London, and my post went to the nearest London which was in Canada.)

Yes, so Banksy near Bank station in London, England.

The address:

Red Eight Gallery, 9 The Royal Exchange, London EC3V 3LR.

The red eight gallery was given that name because the number 8 and the colour red are Asian favourites. After moving to Singapore, when I selected a new email, I chose memorable numbers 8 or 88.  The number 8 in my email when I found the numbers one to four were already taken I thought of jumping to lucky 8 or 88 which  are short and easy to recall.   The founders wanted to appeal to Asians who might be interested in investing in British Banksy.

So, there you have it, easy to remember, exhibition of Banksy near Bank station, Red Eight Gallery.

Open to all, free entry.

Useful Websites

https://www.banksy.co.uk/

https://www.wikiart.org/en/banksy

@RedEightGallery 

@JPRMediaGroup

https://tfl.gov.uk/plan-a-journey/

Four kinds of art: Street Art, National Gallery, Portrait Gallery, Private Gallery

 Every major country and city offers up to four kinds of art. The first is the street art. 

Banksy art, east End of London, England.

Street Art

Public statues, of people (London), horses (Singapore Stadium), monuments. Go onto Wikipedia and you will be astonished  at the number of statues for your home city and the one you are next visiting.

Official and unofficial murals

And graffiti. Banksy, worldwide (see my previous post). Some cities are known for it and you can do organized tours. Such as the East End of London, UK. Philadelphia in the USA. 

Even the railway stations have art. Brunel at Paddington station. Historical characters such as kings and queens and war memorials. Also the up to date, such as Amy Winehouse in Camden.

National Gallery

London, England, has the National Gallery, as well as the Tate Modern.  Scotland, Cyprus, anywhere, look for National Gallery.

Wales has free galleries. And the tapestry in Fishgaurd.

Portrait Gallery

London ,England has the portrait Gallery. So does Scotland. 

Private Galleries

Private galleries generally have works on sale. If you cannot afford a large work of art, and can't carry it home, you might find postcards, books, tee-shirts.

My latest discovery in London is the Red Eight Gallery. It aims at Asian customers, and in Asia red and the number eight are lucky.

Useful Websites

https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/london-statues-and-monuments/

https://historiclondontours.com/gallery-%26-video

See Banksy Murals In London - and more murals planned in Rayners Lane and Harrow & Wealdstone, public input invited!

Hurray - murals are planned to enhance Harrow and Wealdstone and Rayners Lane. the designs are displayed and the public's comments are invited. I like all the designs submitted for public reaction. The trees design looks great. The railway train design is terrific.

I am glad the neglected north of London will have murals to match those in Central, East and South London. 

London already has many murals.

The historical event of the Battle of Cable Street, a major political story, is in the East End of London.

BANKSY MURALS

Near Waterloo station and on the South Bank, Banksy painted the girl with a balloon, which was painted over. However, we are indebted to LYDIA with her SALAD days for the photo which was put on Flickr and copied to Wikipedia where I found it.

Latest version of the Banksy, girl with a red heart shape balloon.

Earlier lost version by Banksy.

A later version of the mural was painted nearby. Wiki has a list of murals all over London. I have also written posts about murals in other parts of the world.

Useful Website

https://www.harrow.gov.uk/news/article/10836/murals-go-straight-to-the-art-of-wealdstone-and-rayners-lane

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Murals_in_London

http://londonmuralpreservationsociety.com/murals/battle-cable-street/

About the Author

Angela Lansbury, the author, lives in London and Singapore. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Banksy on Brexit in Dover, England

Banksy on Brexit, mural in Dover, port on the south coast of England.

You go to Dover on the ferries from Europe.

You won't pass through Dover on the train through the Channel tunnel. That goes from London to Calais through Folkestone in Kent.

However, as you arrive in England or leave from any shipping port or airport you can think about Brexit. The same goes for Heathrow airport in London.

Travel Information and Galleries
visitbritain.com
visitbritainshop.com
https://www.tate.org.uk/

Useful Information and Websites
Travel and Tourism
visitlondon.com
visitbritain.org

Horniman Museum and Gardens
100 London
SE23 3PQ
Tel:020 8699 1872
horniman.ac.uk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horniman_Museum

Transport
citimapper.com
tfl.gov.uk (transport for London)
Forest Hill underground and overground station for the Horniman Museum.
rome2rio.com

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Winning Popular English and American Aritsts: Banksy, Caravaggio, Hopper

Problem
I seen to be out of sync with the popular vote for the best artist at the mall galleries in London. The winning artist has two pictures which contain no people and look to me like technical drawings of soemthing yet to be built. Lifeless.

They remind of an exhibition I saw in London, England of works by Edward Hopper. At least he had figures. But they were lonely little people in vast empty landscapes. They conveyed depression and made me despressed.

Edward Hopper Nighthawks Wikipedia Public Domain (1942)
Friends of American Art Collection. Art Institute of Chicago.


I was never a fan of still life. However, I can see that stiff life serves two purposes. It focuses our attention on fruit and plants which are beautiful. They are easy for the artist for hours.

I prefer people scenes. Maybe because I am an extravert. I like people and movement and smiling faces. I find their emotion catching.

Lowry, for example. Even stick figures can convey animation.

I can admire the technique of showing light containing shadows. Even so, I like people, such as the chiaroscuro pianting s by Caravaggio.

I also like humour. That's why Banksy with his murals catches the popular imagination. He takes blank walls and adds people, life, movement, surprise.

So there you have it. Winners from the past and the popular winner from the present.

Where can you see the pictures?

The gallery in the Mall in London, England.
City centres worlwide have art galleries offering pictures for sale. They are shops and want people to come in and buy, so entry is free.
Walks and talks about Banksy.
Lowry at galleries in the north of England.
Classic artists like caravaggio in national art galleries such as the National Gallery in London.
If you prefer to see faces of people, especailly famous people, The National Portrait Gallery in London. Scotland has another.

If you are going to London and like art, you will want to visit The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, and the National Portrait Gallery which is behind it, doing thee attractions in one place. Another popular venue is The Tate Gallery.

Useful Websites
LONDON
https://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/
 https://www.mallgalleries.org.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/fba-futures-2019?utm_source=Arts+Press&utm_campaign
Horniman Museum and Gardens
100 London
SE23 3PQ
Tel:020 8699 1872
horniman.ac.uk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horniman_Museum

BRISTOL
https://visitbristol.co.uk/things-to-do/banksy-walking-tour

Travel Information
visitbritain.com
visitbritainshop.com
https://www.tate.org.uk/

Useful Information and Websites
Travel and Tourism
visitlondon.com
visitbritain.org

Transport
For directions to galleries such as Forest Hill underground and overground station for the Horniman Museum.
citimapper.com
tfl.gov.uk (transport for London)
rome2rio.com
google maps
streetview

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

A new Banksy in Bristol

Problem
Where to go first. Banksy works of art are popping up all over Britain. The latest is in Bristol. it shows two children carrying two elderly folks. Absurd. It made me laugh out loud.

Answer
You could take a Banksy art tour. Or just a street art tour. (See my previous posts.)

Picture here:
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/confirmed-banksy-road-sign-clevedon-1885845

Useful websites
visitbritain.com
visitbritainshop.com

Author
Angela Lansbury.
See my other posts on Banksy and street art and Bristol and Britain.

The biggest mural in London, UK - maybe the world, in Shoreditch and other murals

Problem
Where is the biggest one? How can I get to see it?

Useful websites
Lovely video from the BBC, where you see the entire mural and sections in detail, and meet the Global Street Art founder, Lee Bofkin and some of his pairs of artists.

Why pairs of artists? It seemed appropriate because the theme of the mural is connectivity.

How big is it? 115 Metres wide and 13 metres high, in total 1400.

Why does the BBC call it a wall mural? A mural is a painting on a wall.

Shoreditch High Street station is on the London overground. You can see it on the tube map. (tfl.gov.uk).

At a London station, I picked up a leaflet called London and the South East rail service London attractions 2 for 1 offers when you go by train. Inside was something I've been wanting for years, a London railway station map much larger so I could read the small print stations names.

To see it, join
Street Art Tours.

You will walk about a mile and a half for over 3 hours on their standards tours, which can be varied to suit different ages and requirements.
Also see the Cable Street mural.
You are also likely to see a Banksy.

Photo of the mural The History of the Old Kent Road. Photo author Paul Simpson from London, England. From Wikipedia, originally in Flickr.

Another historical scene is The History Of The Old Kent Road.


Central London
If you can't get to Shoreditch to see the Banksy, there's another in Mayfair called Shop until you drop. Photo author QuentinUK in Wikipedia.

Useful Websites:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/must_see/45054525/a-look-at-the-uk-s-largest-wall-mural
tfl.gov.uk
shoreditchstreetarttours.co.uk
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g186338-d2042159-Reviews-Street_Art_London_Tours-London_England.html
globalstreetart
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_art
https://www.instagram.com/globalstreetart/?hl=en
http://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-battle-of-cable-street-and-shadwell.html
I have other blog posts on murals in Singapore, and in Italy on Francis of Assissi.
Please share links to your favourite posts.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Bristol has Banksy, RLS and Treasure Island, The Suspension Bridge: what to see and do, where to go

Problem
I was looking at the Balloon Festival and wondering what else there is to see and do in Bristol. A lot has been added since last time I visited.

Answers
Firstly, if you are visiting the Balloon Festival, it is Thursday 9th August to Sunday 12the August. over a long weekend, the August bank holiday.

Ashton Court, Long Ashton, Bristol BS41 9JN.

The 850-acre parkland estate includes a mansion and two pitch and putt golf courses, deer park, miniature railway, orienteering and nature trails. The Balloon event is free. You need to budget for the booked parking places, or for a ticket on the shuttle bus from Temple Mead station.

The historic places are:

1 Hardy's winery (you'd have to arrange to join a group tour). Famous for Bristol Cream Sherry.

2 Brunel's ship SS Great Britain by the harbour.

3 Brunel's Clifton Suspension Bridge. (The Avon Gorge Hotel alongside has a view. But you might prefer to stay and eat at a modern spa hotel of which there are several.) The open top bus tour takes you to the bridge.

Bristol Suspension Bridge. £1 to cross by car. Free to walk across.

4 Old Inn where Robert Louis Stevenson is supposed to have met Selkirk who inspired Robinson Crusoe; also characters from the story of Treasure Island. Being Kidnapped, then as now, was a possibility. I was told the inn, like others, had a spy hole so you could watch for people approaching. When I went there it was the highlight of my trip.

I'm sure somebody somewhere will deny everything about its connections with Stevenson. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. It's a fabulous story, the book treasure Island, and how he came to write are both full of tension, amazing characters. You could sit over drink talking about it for hours.

Long John Silver, the man with the missing leg, was based on Stevenson's good friend, whose leg was amputated, who wrote the inspiring poem Invicticus, 'I am the captain of my ship', or is it soul? Never mind. I'll look it up later.

Llandoger Row, King Street, Bristol, BS1 4ER.
Tel 0871 951 1000 (calls cost 10p per minute plus network extras)
Bristol Temple Meads station is 0.6 miles, Clifton Down 1.2 miles and Redland 1.3 miles. The chain is Brewers Fayre.

If alcohol is not your thing, the city also has a juice bar.

3 You could go to the Aerospace Bristol Museum and step inside Concorde.

4 On a fine day you might go on a Banksy walking tour. Several companies offer Banksy themes.

5 The city also has trips to the Cheddar Gorge. (If you are driving from London you might allow time to do this as a detour on the way down or the way back.)

6 Another trip is to the castle.

7 Bristol Museum is free.

The Bristol tourist board has one of the best websites I have seen. You can even list all the thing you want into a personalised list.

You could group together all the hotels with spas and indoor swimming pools, or the zoo and acquarium and other animal attractions. Or all the museums.

Catch the train to Bath (Jane Austen museum), only fifteen minutes, or drive there, 12 miles.

How could anybody not want to go there?

https://visitbristol.co.uk/things-to-do/banksy-walking-tour-p1354013
www.visitbristol.co.uk
Tel: 0333 321 0101.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Updates, Albuquerque Balloons, and Bristol's International Balloon Festival 2018

Problems
Albuquerque in America in autumn - Balloon Fiesta in the Fall
1 Am I in time for Albuquerque balloon Fiesta? What are the 2017 dates?
2 If yes, and if no, what else can I do in Albuquerque?
Bristol
3 When's the next British Balloon Festival?
4 What else can I do in Bristol, before, during or afterwards?

Answers

1 The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta is at Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA October 7-15 2017. 

When you go onto their website you can see whether they still have any tickets for the day you choose. 

2 If not, you could watch from afar and visit the Balloon Museum. (See my previous posts.)

⧬⧬⧬⧬⧬⧬⧭⧭⧭⧭⧭⧬⧬⧬⧬⧬⧬

Hey - I was thinking of inserting a row of stars to indicate a change of subject and I tapped on insert special characters and found these. I think they are the symbols for male and female but they look like balloons when they are small. How appropriate. So cute!

3 BALLOONS IN BRISTOL IN BRITAIN

If you are thinking about going to next year's balloon International in Bristol, England, the dates are Thursday 9th to Sunday 12th August 2018.

So, you could see balloons in Britain in Summer, in the Autumn or Fall in America.

4 Your trip to Bristol is to a very English place, famous for 

1 Bristol English. I bought the humorous local book Let Stalk Strine.

2 Banksy, the world's favourite graffiti artist, has decorated Bristol.

Here's an aerial view of the show ground, surrounded by trees.

 It is at Ashton Court Estate, Bristol.

What's international about it? The people. The companies sponsoring the balloons.

From the last show, here are pictures of 

The red Virgin balloon. 

Champagne Taittinger, from the region of Champagne, the town of Reims, in France. If you go to Reims you can pay to take timed tours at many Champagne houses in the busy summer season. Check in advance.  

Hardy's wines, established in 1853, run guided tours for groups of the winery and tell you about wines and spirits, such Bristol Cream Sherry. Sometimes, given notice, a winery which only taken group bookings can add you onto a larger group.

Balloons at Bristol. We have lift off!

See you next year!

www.bristolballoonfiesta.co.uk

www.visitbristol.co.uk 

tel:0333 321 0101

For more on Bristol see next post.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See my other posts. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Graffiti Museum - Urban Museum In Berlin, Germany

Graffiti and Street Art, same thing or opposites?

Problems
Graffiti spoiling beautiful buildings.
Modern artwork on historic buildings.
'Art' done hastily by people with no talent or care.
Tunnels and alleys and buildings with boring blank walls.
No activities for bored teenagers and young workers.
No plan to remove bad graffiti and create good graffiti.

Answers
A plan to cover blank walls and beautify a city.
Protection for historic and empty buildings. (Barriers and CCTV.)
Restrictions on sale of spray paint to minors who are too young to understand the damage they cause and too young to be prosecuted.
Publicise the cost of clean-up - extremely expensive in time and equipment, admin costs, time consuming, dangerous, and hard to do without damaging the walls, a waste of tax payers' money.
Good graffiti can transform morale and turn into a tourist attraction, generating jobs and income.
If you are bored or looking for voluntary work or a good cause, especially if you in the art or admin world, here's a project for you and your area or city.
Every city should have a central wall which shows its historic landmarks and famous characters.
Commission art work which is trompe l'oeuil, realistic, surreal, skilful.

Stories
I was horrified by the graffiti on wonderful old art nouveau buildings in Bucharest, capital of Romania. My second city stay was in Brasov (the city near the Dracula Castle). One of the famous landmarks in Brasov is the 'string street', a narrow alley, which was ruined by random, unsightly graffiti.

Tourist Visits
Cities Famous For Graffiti
Berlin - Berlin Wall; UrbanMuseum
Bristol - Banksy

Cities Famous for Murals

Philadelphia, USA

London, England

Famous Street Art artists:
DALeast
www.daleast.com
Eine
IcyAndSot
Jeff Soto Facebook

Urban Museum

• • Tuesday-Sunday 10.00 -18.00
• ADDRESS

URBAN NATION MUSEUM FOR URBAN CONTEMPORARY ART
Bülowstraße 97
10783 Berlin
Germany

CONTACTTel.: +49(0)30 32295989E-Mail: office@urban-nation.comhttps://www.urban-nation.com/de/

Tips
BBC article on the Berlin museum:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-41291813#_=_
Concealing Swastikas:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-europe-40809266/berlin-street-artist-group-cleverly-undo-swastika-graffiti
Facebook on the Urban Museum
https://www.facebook.com/urbannationberlin/
Urban Nation Museum Webpage (has a video)
More ideas on where to go in a visit to Berlin from a Wiki list of museums in Berlin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_and_galleries_in_Berlin

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
See my other posts on graffiti in Romania and murals.

Charing Cross Station Decoration and Information On The National Gallery

 Charing Cross station in central London has the best decoration and information panels I've seen in London, in fact anywhere in the world. Near the station are London's National Gallery of art and the National Portrait Gallery.

If you are visiting either gallery, and, indeed, if you are not, make time to stop and read about both of them from the information on Charing Cross underground station.

I was interested to learn how holes were used to copy pictures. Our first thought was that you copied the picture's main feature such as a face or body or house, same size on see-through paper, moved the tracing paper over the sketch paper or canvas, then pricked holes around the silhouette, then treated the holes like a stencil and used the tip of a pencil to make a mark through the hole. 

This could also be a way to copy photos onto drawing paper to do a sketch or water colour. However in medieval or Renaissance times the medium would have been oil colour or if you were important, grand murals on the interior walls of churches. 

The Romans and others had decorated homes previously with murals. The exteriors off buildings are still painted today in some parts of Europe such as German.

Nowadays we have murals on the outsides of buildings in: London, England; Banksy in Britain, and the USA; murals in Philadephia, USA; plus graffiti worldwide.

But back to the system of copying. Read more on the National Gallery website.

The National Portrait Gallery displays oil paintings, photos, caricatures and sculptures or people such as Shakespeare, the royal family, the Brontes, Churchill, and many more characters from history, science and the arts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Virgin_and_Child_with_St_Anne_and_St_John_the_Baptist

Pricking holes to copy a picture

http://www.npg.org.uk/learning/digital/portraiture/perspective-seeing-where-you-stand/drawing.php

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, researcher, author, speaker.