Under the title A genius, or a vandal? , the exhibition of Banksy was inaugurated Thursday at the centre Ifema in Madrid, after to have drawn 500,000 people to Moscow and St. Petersburg, according to a news release from its organizer, the company Sold Out . “Banksy is a phenomenon and one of the artists in the most brilliant and important of our time”, said the curator of the exhibition Alexander Nachkebiya.

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The identity of Banksy is, in truth, a mystery well kept since its inception in the 1990s. Of him we know his nationality (british), his hometown (Bristol), his page Instagram to five million subscribers and his website where he uploads his works, without any other comment.

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“I wish I could find it fun. What is the opposite of LOL ?”

Banksy, street-british artist

In Madrid, the exhibition fee, which includes works lent by private collectors, has not been authorized by the artist, like the previous ones in Russia and Belgium. This summer, Banksy had expressed his amazement about the exhibition in moscow. On his account Instagram, he had posted the screen capture of an exchange of messages with a contact who has sent in a photo of a billboard of the event. “What is it?”, met the artist. When his interlocutor said that this was an exhibition that the entrance ticket cost 22 euros, Banksy had replied: “I would like to be able to find it fun. What is the opposite of LOL?”

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Banksy has made his street art as a means of protest and plays with her recovery for commercial purposes. In October, he had premeditated the resounding destruction of his famous painting Girl with a balloon to London . This reproduction, acrylic paint, and spray one of the most famous works of Banksy, showing a little girl letting fly a red balloon in the shape of a heart. Having just been awarded to 1,185 million euros in Sotheby’s , the table was half-passed through the lower part of its frame, cut in thin strips vertical.