June 18, 2023 – August 28, 2023
CUT & RUN: 25 Years Card Labour
Twenty-Five Years of Stencils at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art
Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, United Kingdom
CUT & RUN: 25 Years Card Labour was Banksy’s first artist-led solo museum exhibition in fourteen years. Presented at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art, the exhibition revealed original stencils used between 1998 and 2023, together with artifacts, working material and reconstructed environments connected with the production of his images.
Rather than presenting only finished artworks, Banksy exposed the physical tools and practical decisions behind a practice often described through anonymity and surprise. Objects once kept hidden because they might have served as evidence of criminal damage were reclassified as material for a museum exhibition.
The Stencil as Working Object
A stencil is normally understood as an intermediate tool. It allows an image to be reproduced quickly and is often discarded once that function has been completed. In CUT & RUN, those working objects became the principal archive.
Cut edges, paint residue, repairs and repeated use recorded a history different from the clean image left on a wall. The stencils demonstrated that apparent visual simplicity could depend on careful preparation, separation of layers and practical adaptation to difficult locations.
Presented together, they also made repetition easier to understand. A familiar Banksy figure may appear in several cities or formats, but the surviving matrix connects those versions to a common physical process.
The exhibition therefore shifted attention from the public image toward the hidden work that precedes it.
Control of the Exhibition Narrative
Unlike the many independent exhibitions produced from private collections, CUT & RUN was conceived and presented with Banksy’s direct involvement. The artist controlled which tools, objects and fragments of working life entered the museum.
Authentic ephemera, reconstructed environments and elements connected with well-known projects accompanied the stencils. Even the inclusion of the artist’s toilet blurred the distinction between meaningful archive, studio debris and institutional display.
The exhibition also altered GoMA’s normal operating patterns. Weekend opening extended through the night, and more than 180,000 people attended over ten weeks, breaking the institution’s box-office records.
This public response did not turn the project into a conventional retrospective. By presenting production tools rather than a chronological parade of market-recognized works, Banksy retained the ability to frame his own history around labor, risk and reproduction.
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