"Graffiti" reading and speaking

Where do you expect to see graffiti? Probably not in a museum. Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, in the south-west of England, was the kind of place where you could see classical pictures and statues. However, in the summer of 2009, the exhibition ‘Banksy versus the Bristol Museum’ opened. The exhibition presented more than a hundred works by Banksy, one of the world’s most famous graffiti artists.

Banksy is a puzzle to all. He keeps his identity secret. He hardly ever gives interviews and likes to remain anonymous. Nobody knows much about his life or his background but many people believe that his real name is either Robert Banks or Robin Banks and that he was born in England, somewhere near Bristol.

Banksy’s street art is always provocative. It's his way of communicating with society. His graffiti is characterized by bright and frequently shocking images, often combined with slogans. His work is often a personal protest against wars, social policy or people's behavior. Although graffiti is not allowed in cities, Banksy's works have become immensely popular.

Banksy believes that art should not be used for advertising. He has refused four times to do adverts for Nike, a famous sportswear company.

A year after the Bristol exhibition, Banksy made a film called “Exit Through the Gift Shop”. The film tells the story of a street artist. It got many positive reviews from the critics and from the general audience.

Another curious fact from Banksy's biography is that once he was named among the 100 most influential people in the world. He actually found himself in the company of Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, and Lady Gaga. When he was asked to send a photo, Banksy sent a picture of himself with a paper bag (recyclable, naturally) over his head. His fans still don’t really know who he is.

Bristol isn’t the only place in Britain to welcome and accept graffiti. A park in Dundee, Scotland, has the longest legal graffiti wall (almost 110 meters long) in the UK. Anyone can paint on the wall any time they like. The idea of this graffiti wall project is to demonstrate the positive side of graffiti and to organize workshops and graffiti classes for local children.

Even the capital of the country could not stay free of street art. There's a special website dedicated to London's street art and artists. The site's team is a group of enthusiastic young people who are closely connected with the street art world. They try to record and register all the works and display them on their “Street Art London” site. That is quite a job to do! The reason is that street art is very temporal and short-lived: graffiti is soon covered by another wall painting so they have to be quick to take a picture and post it on the website.

So the text talks about street art and mostly Banksy, also London and the museums of street art. Banksy was a legend he didn’t accept 4 Nike Ads and he was in the top 100 influential people in the world. His graffitis are “talking” about, for example, war, peace and some social problems. He kept his identity in a secret nobody knows his real name for sure. Also when people do graffiti they should take a picture of their graffiti cause soon it will be covered by another wall painting. Also fan fact I’ve been to Moco Museum” in the Netherlands and I’ve seen some of his works and they were amazing.