Banksy is one of Bristol’s most famous cultural exports, which is a slightly odd phrase to use about an artist whose identity remains officially unconfirmed and whose early career depended rather heavily on not asking permission. The museum doesn’t name him, but it gives his date of birth as 1974, which aligns with the long-running claim that Banksy is Robin Gunningham, a Bristol-born figure who has repeatedly been linked with the artist, although the anonymity remains part of the performance and should probably be treated with a little caution. Still, when a museum gives Banksy a birth year rather than leaving him floating entirely in the mist, it feels like a discreet nod towards the most widely accepted theory.
The Grim Reaper is a very Bristol object because it belongs to that awkward middle ground between mischief and heritage. Painted in 2003 on the side of Thekla, the former cargo ship turned nightclub in Bristol Harbour, it shows death rowing along the hull with a pleasingly bleak sense of purpose. It worked because of its setting: a skeleton in a boat, on a boat, in a harbour city. The work was later removed from the vessel because exposure to the elements was damaging it, and it now survives as a conserved object rather than as something glimpsed outside in its original setting.
I know that Banksy blurs the lines between graffiti and art, but his work is intriguing and interesting, usually drawing a crowd who want to see it. And this feels like one of the most appropriate places for one of his artworks to end up, all very lovely.