Banksy and Other Stories of Rebel Artists at Casa Alberobello, Italy
From April 15th to September 30th, 2025, Casa Alberobello in Alberobello, Italy, hosts “Banksy and Other Stories of Rebel Artists”, an exhibition featuring over 50 of the most provocative and unconventional works from the contemporary art scene. A visual and conceptual journey in which art disturbs, questions, and narrates the present through the eyes of some of the most influential artists of our time.
Curated by Piernicola Maria Di Iorio, the exhibition stands as a powerful statement of intent: to tell stories of rebellion, disobedience, and transformation, in which art becomes a tool for denunciation, social critique, and personal affirmation. It’s an immersive experience that spans diverse languages and generations, all united by a shared will to challenge the status quo.
LEFT: Banksy, Donuts Chocolate, 2009, Signed screen print, Pop House Gallery; RIGHT: Angelo Accardi, Blend, 2018, Oil on canvas, Pop House Gallery
Rebel Art Among the Trulli
In Alberobello, amidst the UNESCO World Heritage trulli, the exhibition creates a surprising dialogue between past and present, tradition and subversion. These traditional dry-stone dwellings, originally built as practical solutions to everyday needs, find a powerful resonance in the works of artists who, likewise, emerged from the margins to become universal symbols of creative freedom.
The exhibition features works by Banksy, TvBoy, Schifano, Warhol, Damien Hirst, Mr. Brainwash, Obey, Takashi Murakami, Liu Bolin, Kaws, Accardi, Petrucci, and others — a constellation of radical voices and hybrid languages, capable of blending aesthetics and activism, irony and lyricism, protest and poetry.
LEFT: Andy Warhol, Ingrid Bergman, 1972, Screen print, Pop House Gallery; RIGHT: Takashi Murakami, E poi... white Mr. Dob, 2016, Offset lithograph on paper, Pop House Gallery
Banksy: Art as an Act of Resistance
An enigmatic figure and a symbol of an entire generation, Banksy embodies rebellion as an artistic practice. His choice to remain anonymous is not a mere communication tactic, but an ideological stance against the cult of personality that dominates the art world. His stencils, appearing on the walls of London, Gaza, New York, and beyond, transform urban spaces into public, accessible, and democratic galleries.
Works such as “Flying Copper” or “Bomb Love” condense sharp social critiques into immediate, universal images that speak both to intellectuals and casual passersby. Banksy does not only question society—he challenges the art system itself: from the famous self-destruction of a work at auction to the unauthorized installation of his pieces in some of the world’s most prestigious museums, each of his actions is a powerful, ironic strike against institutional and commercial logic.
LEFT: Banksy, Bomb Love, 2003, Screen print, Pop House Gallery; RIGHT: Banksy, Flying Copper, 2003, Screen print, Pop House Gallery
Beyond Banksy: New Forms of Visual Dissent
“Banksy and Other Stories of Rebel Artists” is part of the official program of the Locus Festival 2025, produced and organized by Bass Culture and Piuma, with the patronage of the Municipality of Alberobello. This is not a merely aesthetic exhibition—it is an invitation to reflect, to feel, and to act. An opportunity to rediscover the power of creativity as a form of courage, awareness, and civic participation.
In the landscape of contemporary art, rebellion takes on many shapes: from political protest to market disruption, from occupying urban space to rejecting exhibition norms. The long wave of street art has given rise to a community of artists who, though diverse in their approaches, share a common mission: to remove art from traditional circuits.
Obey (Shepard Fairey) turned his campaign “André the Giant Has a Posse” into a visual empire that spans from political posters to commercial design, while maintaining a thematic coherence focused on power critique. His iconic “HOPE” image for Obama’s presidential campaign marked the moment when street art definitively crossed over from counterculture to mainstream.
LEFT: Shepard Fairey (Obey), Hope, 2008, Lithograph on paper, Pop House Gallery; RIGHT: Damien Hirst, Theodora, 2022, Giclée print laminated on aluminum composite panel, silkscreened with glitter, Pop House Gallery
TVBOY brings this attitude into the Mediterranean context, with interventions that portray Italian and European political current events through a pop lens. His provocative images spark public debate and demonstrate how unauthorized art can still have a tangible impact on collective discourse.
Mr. Brainwash, connected to Banksy through the documentary “Exit Through the Gift Shop”, stands as a symbol of the commodification of rebellion. His meteoric rise in the art market raises questions about how easily the aesthetics of dissent can be assimilated by the very system it once sought to critique.
LEFT: Mr. Brainwash, Basquiart, 2021, Mixed media on canvas, Pop House Gallery; RIGHT: TvBoy, Santa Claus Illegal Immigrant, 2020, Mixed media on canvas, Pop House Gallery
Damien Hirst, Takashi Murakami, Liu Bolin, and KAWS—despite operating within institutional contexts—retain a powerful critical charge: Hirst through provocation and the disruption of the commercial art circuit; Murakami through the fusion of high and low culture; Liu Bolin through the disappearance of the body as a political gesture; and KAWS through the transformation of graffiti into a global icon.
LEFT: Kaws, Gone Companion - Blue Edition, 2019, Cast resin figure in painted vinyl, Pop House Gallery; RIGHT: Liu Bolin, Fruit Juices, 2019, Photograph, inkjet print 88 x 66 cm, Pop House Gallery
This generation of visual dissidents fits into a tradition that finds one of its pioneers in Andy Warhol and one of its most intense Italian interpreters in Mario Schifano. Petrucci and Accardi represent more recent evolutions of this rebellious attitude, showing how subversion continues to reinvent itself through the languages of our present.
“Banksy and Other Stories of Rebel Artists” teaches us that true independence in contemporary art does not lie in remaining on the margins, but in maintaining a critical stance—even when engaging with the very systems it seeks to question.
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