Warhol vs Banksy comparison in Catania

"In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes" wrote Andy Wharol in the 1960s. Banksy mocks him by writing: "Everyone in life will have 15 minutes of anonymity".

The idea of comparing two characters who are distant in time is the theme of an exhibition organized in Catania that will last until June 2022.

In just 40 years and more, some values have been overturned, including that of visibility. A desire to "be there" in Wharol's time and the desire not to "be there" and detach from the omnipresence of social media for Banksy's contemporaries.

Despite the different historical context we can note that Warhol and Banksy have many points in common.

Both have been able to make the most of the media as a great free advertising vehicle, creating Warhol an image of a transgressive and scandalous character and Banksy a mysterious image, in which he pretends to be a "street" artist, but chooses strategic "walls" where to report his cartoons.

Wharol paints a banana (the first of all the "banana shops", followed by others, including Cattellan) and Banksy takes an image from the film Pulp fiction and replaces the guns with ... bananas.

Wharol creates an image with Marilyn Monroe, which later became his "calling card", and Banksy arrives and creates an image of Kate Moss (I know, the comparison is indecent) with the same colors as Wharol's Marilyn.

Ultimately, bringing together images of Banksy together with those of Andy Wharol more than a comparison is a huge gift, if he still needs it, to Banksy.

Wharol wins for manifest superiority.

Of course in Wharol's time there were Elvis Presley and the Beatles, Banksy had to live in the time of Ed Sheeran and the Maneskins.

Andrea Giuseppe Fadini