Now wash your hands

Stan and I visited the Banksy vs. Bristol Museum exhibition today. We had to queue for about 90 minutes to get in - this exhibition must be doing wonders for visitor numbers at Bristol's City Museum and Art Gallery - though the fact that the museum have made it free admission is a nice bonus.

Overall, I thought it was a bit average. The initial room of mainly graffiti artwork was quite good - I hate Mondays! in particular - but the animatronics in the central area were pretty lame and much of the work dotted around the rest of the museum and galleries too obvious (the main exception being a muzzled lamb in the natural history section which defied explanation).

I like Banksy's work but he should probably stick to the street where he belongs - I think his work loses much of its magic inside the safe environment of a museum or gallery. That said, I don't regret queuing to get in - it was worth seeing - and my guess is that it would work particularly well for a family visit. Much of the humor is at a level that appeals directly to kids. There's no doubt that this exhibition is bringing people into the museum and gallery space who might otherwise not do so, which has got to be a good thing, right?