Warhol e Banksy

Two artists and two seemingly distant personalities confront each other: the extraordinary world of Andy Warhol, the world's most photographed, famous and ubiquitous artist, dialogues with the anonymous Banksy, and his art, a worldwide media event.

On the one hand, Warhol, his ‘consumer product’ works, and his name, a true brand; on the other Banksy, a great communications expert, who continues to make people talk about him by transforming street vandalism into an international front-page event, capable of making the rounds of the world, with his anonymity becoming an icon (brand) in the same way as Warhol.

The exhibition focuses precisely on the parallel investigation of the aims and intentions of the two artists who have most worked on their public image so that art becomes action and explicit provocation to the art market.

On display at WeGil are more than 100 works of art from famous private collections worldwide and major art galleries. From Banksy's sensual Kate Moss to Warhol's pose of Marylin after the actress's death in 1962, to Warhol's portrait of Queen Elizabeth wearing a royal tiara and Banksy's monkey-like portrait (Monkey Queen). And then Warhol's famous portrait of Mao, Lenin and Kennedy and Banksy's Queen Victoria. Grace Kelly, Mick Jagger, Keith Haring, Joseph Beuys, Liza Minelli: the works of these two brilliant artists, capable of creating a potent cocktail of celebrity, satire and voyeurism, are also compared for having been able to transform the art of the last 50 years into an extraordinary event.

Also on display, Banksy's famous wall entitled Season's greetings made in Wales in Port Talbot in 2018, which invites us to reflect on the consequences that air pollution has on our health.

Warhol and Banksy also addresses the major themes common to the two artists such as Music with over 50, including signed Warhol vinyls, and CDs with a cover designed by Banksy, records and iconic posters including the famous 1967 banana from the cover of The Velvet Underground & Nico, a symbol of a musical generation in dialogue with Banksy's Pulp Fiction, in which John Travolta instead of a gun is holding Warhol's iconic banana.