After keeping a secret for almost three years, Banksy art exhibit debuts

A Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art curator was working from home during COVID when he got a call that would lead to a 2 ½ -year secret plan to bring one of the most elusive artist’s shows to life.

The artist: Bansky, whose last solo exhibit was 14 years ago, and has generated buzz with his anonymity, a painting that self-shredded during an auction and later sold for more than $24 million, and shows popping up from Berlin to Las Vegas that he claims no affiliation.

The Glasgow show would reveal for the first time the stencils and behind-the-scenes process used by Banksy, even if he’s never confirmed his full identity, to create many of their most iconic and memorable works of graffiti art over the past 25 years. 

But first, Martin McSheaffrey-Craig would need to keep the exhibit a secret, not just from the public, but from much of the staff at the very museum where he worked.

How GoMa kept Banksy a secret

McSheaffrey-Craig said one tactic in not revealing the project was containing his excitement

“When we were going for meetings or discussing it, it was always kind of I need to make it sound like the most boring project, so everyone was like, ‘I don’t even want to know what you are talking about because that sounds boring as hell’ ” he said. “We didn’t want to lie to our colleagues, so it was more about deferring it.”

It was difficult because the museum team is a close one. But they also knew if word got out, Banksy would cancel the show.

He and museum manager Gareth James invented a cover story to maintain the secret. James admits – a story that had to change when the thing they invented became a reality. 

“Our cover story, because we did have to kind of talk about it a bit more, was that we were going to get some refurbishment on the windows at GoMA. And then, rather brilliantly, another department managed to source the funding to get the windows replaced. So, our cover story had to change because we were saying, ‘Oh yes we have to keep that clear for the windows getting repaired’, and lo and behold, we actually were getting the windows repaired,” he said.

Announcing the Banksy show to the world

With only a few people with knowledge of the show, sharing the news would be tricky.

That’s when Glasgow-based The Herald (part of the Gannett group which owns USA TODAY) joined.

When journalist Deborah Anderson received a call promising a major exclusive that would require a hastily arranged meeting, she had a hunch it would be big.

The mystery intrigued her.

Soon she learned that Banksy was opening an exhibit within the week, and the artist wanted the newspaper to announce it.

“It didn’t take me long to answer and there was only ever going to be one response to this,” she wrote in a column about it. “It was an immediate Yes.”

With the show details and permission to publish a Banksy image on the newspaper’s cover, and some secret work of her own, the newspaper published what would become one of its most requested issues. The Herald featured artwork by the artist on both the front and back of the broadsheet newspaper. (Readers can purchase a copy of the The Herald Banksy edition – Herald and Times.)

Banksy opens show in Glasgow

Spanning from 1998 to the present day, Banksy tells The Herald through his team that the exhibition, which includes authentic artifacts, ephemera and the artist’s actual toilet, is ‘25 years card labour’.

 “I’ve kept these stencils hidden away for years, mindful they could be used as evidence in a charge of criminal damage. But that moment seems to have passed, so now I’m exhibiting them in a gallery as works of art. I’m not sure which is the greater crime,” he said.

The show runs through August.

Banksy said: “While the unauthorized Banksy shows might look like sweepings from my studio floor, CUT & RUN really is the actual sweepings from my studio floor.”

Now that the secret is out and the first visitors have seen the exhibit, James praised Bansky and his team for the show.

James said: “I think the show is beyond what I could even have imagined or wished for.”