WarholBanksy – Palazzo della Cultura

The comparison between the two communication superstars

The exhibition, curated by Sabina de Gregori and Giuseppe Stagnitta, will be held at the Palazzo della Cultura in Catania from 22 November 2021 to 2 June 2022 and documents the innovative and revolutionary path of two great artists who have changed the way of experiencing art in the last 50 years: Warhol and Banksy.

A confrontation between two artists and two apparently distant personalities: the fabulous world of Andy Warhol, famous and omnipresent, the most photographed artist in the world, against the anonymous Banksy who has never posed for a photo and risks arrest from Disneyland to Palestine, making his art a worldwide media event.

On the one hand, therefore, Warhol and his works have become a consumer product and his name a real brand, and on the other Banksy, a great communications expert who continues to make people talk about him by transforming street vandalism into an international front-page event, capable of reaching the entire planet, now a successful brand recognised throughout the world, and not only in the world of art. Banksy, like Warhol, has become a real brand like Coca-Cola or Nike.

Two artists whose most famous works are themselves: “In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes” said Warhol and Banksy replies: “Everyone in life will have 15 minutes of anonymity”. Brilliant figures, capable of creating a powerful cocktail of celebrity, satire and voyeurism, who have managed to turn their art into an extraordinary event.

Palazzo della Cultura

After the terrible earthquake of 1693, the remains of the former Monastery of San Placido and the oldest part of the Platamone Palace (donated by the Platamone family to the Benedictines in the 15th century) were integrated to create the present Palazzo della Cultura.

After numerous renovations, the only late-medieval vestige of the building is the loggia, overlooked by a small balcony that seems almost set against the backdrop of the monastery courtyard.

The rows of arches along the rectangular plan seem to embrace the entire building. In the centre it is still possible to see the coat of arms of the Platamone family, which represents a mountain with three shells and a lily on top.