Power made visible in a serene landscape, disrupting what should be peaceful
In Barcelona, the Moco Museum has gathered twenty-five authenticated works by Banksy under the title 'Disrupted Power,' offering the city a rare and formally verified encounter with an artist who has spent decades interrogating how authority is constructed and undone. Spanning more than two decades of practice, the exhibition asks what it means to challenge power not through force but through irony, tenderness, and the quiet intrusion of the unexpected. In a world where authenticity is contested and images are endlessly reproduced, the show's careful verification by Pest Control becomes itself a kind of statement — that even the art of disruption must be grounded in something real.
- Twenty-five Banksy works, all officially authenticated by Pest Control, have arrived at Barcelona's Moco Museum — a rare concentration of verified pieces in a field rife with forgery and dispute.
- Two 2024 works sharpen the exhibition's urgency: military helicopters descending into an autumn idyll and a reimagined Madonna force viewers to confront what violence does to peace and what irreverence does to the sacred.
- A 2006 sculpture pierced by a bullet wound — once purchased by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie directly from the artist — now anchors the museum's permanent collection, tracing how street art travels between sidewalk and institution.
- Iconic earlier works like 'Girl with Balloon' and 'Love is in the Air' share walls with recent pieces, creating a dialogue across two decades that reveals how Banksy's core tensions — protest and hope, irony and sincerity — have only deepened with time.
The Moco Museum in Barcelona opened 'Disrupted Power' this week, an exhibition of twenty-five Banksy works centered on the theme that has defined his practice for decades: the nature of power and the many ways it can be challenged or undone.
What sets the show apart is its rigorous authentication. Every piece has been verified by Pest Control, the only organization authorized to confirm Banksy's work. In a market where forgery is common and provenance shapes both value and meaning, that verification is no small matter.
Two 2024 works anchor the exhibition. 'Madonna and Child' takes one of art history's most familiar images and renders it strange through Banksy's characteristic intervention. 'Happy Choppers (Crude Oil)' places military helicopters against a tranquil autumn landscape — a collision of violence and serenity that refuses to let the viewer look away. Alongside them hangs 'Bullet Hole Bust,' a 2006 sculpture that interrupts classical form with a gunshot wound. The piece carries its own story: it was purchased directly from Banksy by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie following his 'Barely Legal' show in Los Angeles and now belongs to the museum's permanent collection.
Earlier works — 'Girl with Balloon (Gold),' 'Love is in the Air (Red),' 'Laugh Now Panel B' — complete the show, creating a conversation across more than twenty years of practice. Together, they trace how Banksy's tensions between irony and sincerity, protest and hope, have persisted and evolved, and invite visitors to consider what it means to keep disrupting power, year after year, in an ever-changing world.
The Moco Museum in Barcelona opened its doors this week to 'Disrupted Power,' an exhibition built around twenty-five authenticated works by Banksy. The show centers on a theme that has animated the British artist's practice for decades: the nature of power and the ways it can be challenged, subverted, or unmade.
What distinguishes this collection is not merely its size or the artist's reputation, but the fact that every piece has been officially verified by Pest Control, the sole organization authorized to authenticate Banksy's work. In a field where forgery and attribution disputes are common, this verification carries weight. Each painting, print, or installation on display represents what the museum describes as the artist's authentic production—a claim that matters in a market where Banksy's work commands significant prices and where questions of provenance can determine a piece's value and meaning.
Two recent works anchor the exhibition. 'Madonna and Child,' created in 2024, offers what might be called a tender but unsettling reimagining of a sacred subject, one of art history's most familiar images rendered strange through Banksy's intervention. Alongside it hangs 'Happy Choppers (Crude Oil),' also from 2024, which depicts military helicopters descending into an otherwise peaceful autumn landscape—a collision of violence and serenity that forces the viewer to reckon with what intrudes upon peace.
The exhibition also includes 'Bullet Hole Bust,' a 2006 work that takes classical sculptural form and interrupts it with a gunshot wound. This piece carries its own provenance story: it was purchased directly from Banksy following his 'Barely Legal' show in Los Angeles that same year by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. It now belongs to the museum's permanent collection, a reminder that Banksy's work has long circulated through both street and gallery worlds, and that celebrity collectors have been part of that circulation from the beginning.
Rounding out the show are pieces that have become iconic in their own right: 'Girl with Balloon (Gold)' from 2004, 'Love is in the Air (Red)' from 2003, and 'Laugh Now Panel B' from 2002. These works, displayed alongside the newer acquisitions, create a conversation across time—between irony and sincerity, between protest and hope, between the classical traditions that Banksy often references and the contemporary moment in which he works. The exhibition invites visitors to see how these tensions persist and evolve across the span of the artist's career.
Notable Quotes
Each work represents the artist's authentic production, verified by the only organization authorized to authenticate Banksy's art— Moco Museum Barcelona
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does it matter that Pest Control authenticated these works? Isn't Banksy famous enough that forgery wouldn't be a real problem?
Banksy's fame is actually part of the problem. The more valuable his work becomes, the more incentive there is to forge it. Pest Control exists precisely because the art world needed a way to separate real Banksys from convincing fakes. Without that verification, a collector could spend a fortune on something that isn't authentic.
So this exhibition is partly about proving these are real?
Yes, but it's also about what that realness means. When you know a piece is verified, you can look at it differently. You're not wondering if it's genuine—you're free to think about what the work is actually saying.
The Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie connection—does that change how we should think about the 'Bullet Hole Bust'?
It complicates things. Banksy started as a street artist, someone working outside the gallery system. But his work was being collected by major celebrities almost immediately. That piece is a perfect example of how Banksy's art moved between worlds—from the street to the homes of Hollywood actors—without losing its edge.
What's the through-line connecting all these works?
Power. How it operates, how it's challenged, how it intrudes on ordinary life. The helicopters in 'Happy Choppers' are power made visible. The bullet hole in the classical bust is power disrupting beauty. Even 'Girl with Balloon' is about loss of power, or the fragility of hope. The exhibition asks you to see these conversations across twenty years of work.