LEILA FADEL, HOST:
There's a new Banksy museum in New York City, except the works there aren't actually Banksy's, and the British graffiti artist and political activist, whose real name is not known, never agreed to having his work reproduced, which means it's complicated. NPR's Isabella Gomez Sarmiento reports.
ISABELLA GOMEZ SARMIENTO, BYLINE: The museum tries to recreate the experience of being on the street. There's manhole covers, fake debris, and everywhere are walls. They look like brick or concrete, and on them, stencils of rats, children, police officers.
HAZIS VARDAR: Banksy changed the rules. If you want to organize something about Banksy, you have to change the rules also.
GOMEZ SARMIENTO: That's museum founder Hazis Vardar, who privately collects Banksy originals and opened an exhibit in Paris several years ago. When that version was successful, he opened this branch in New York. He describes Banksy as a pirate. For decades, the anonymous British artist has upended the art world, stenciling big murals that are often funny and political and appear suddenly overnight. Vardar says he's on a similar wavelength by...
VARDAR: Creating a museum of someone without the authorization of the artist.
GOMEZ SARMIENTO: He sees what he's doing as a kind of preservation of Banksy's works for the sake of the public. Out in the world, he says, they're often painted over, damaged by weather or...
VARDAR: Sometimes the cleaning team of the city - they just clean it in the morning. It happens.
GOMEZ SARMIENTO: But Leila Amineddoleh, an art and intellectual property attorney in New York City, has a different take.
LEILA AMINEDDOLEH: There are tons of replicas of the Mona Lisa, and that's not preserving the original. And I would argue the same for Banksy.
GOMEZ SARMIENTO: A lot of Banksy's pieces are site-specific works. They're made at a particular location, like the West Bank barrier wall, with a particular context in mind. She says taking that art indoors and charging a $30 entrance fee goes against Banksy's core mission.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP")
BANKSY: It's not about the hype. It's not about the money.
GOMEZ SARMIENTO: That's Banksy speaking through a heavy audio distortion filter in his award-winning 2010 documentary, "Exit Through The Gift Shop." It criticized the commercialization of street art. And Pest Control, the company that manages Banksy's licensing, has also denounced any use of his work for profit on its website. Pest Control and Banksy did not reply to requests for comment. We do know that Banksy has written that copywriting is for losers, but Amineddoleh says...
AMINEDDOLEH: He automatically had a copyright when he created this artwork. The fact that he doesn't like copyright doesn't really make a difference.
GOMEZ SARMIENTO: Vardar doesn't seem too worried, either about selling tickets or Banksy T-shirts in the museum's gift shop.
VARDAR: We exist. If Banksy want to sue us, it's very easy.
GOMEZ SARMIENTO: Amineddoleh says Banksy is not likely to sue anytime soon. It would risk his anonymity and ruin the mystique surrounding him. She says that could impact the value of his work. For now, no lawsuit means the Banksy museum can keep its doors open for as long as people show up. But those visitors won't include people like the founders of Brooklyn Street Art, which documents and preserves street art. They say these Banksys - they're not the real thing. Over email, they said this was more like a traveling circus than a museum and likened the replicas to Michelangelos on the walls of a pizza parlor.
Isabella Gomez Sarmiento, NPR News, New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TONIGHT THE STREETS ARE OURS")
RICHARD HAWLEY: (Singing) Do you know why you got feelings in your heart? Don't let fear of feeling fool you. What you see sets you... Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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