Banksy's "Dismaland park": shocking, extraordinary Opens Friday

Banksy's 'Dismaland Bemusement Park' Officially Opens Friday; Features 47 International Artists

Fans have had their first glimpse inside Banksy’s new pop-up show, his ‘Dismaland Bemusement Park’, a dark parody of Disneyland, which officially opens tomorrow at a derelict beach-front water park in the English seaside town of Weston-super-Mare.

A new Dismaland website announces that the project will be a “festival of art, amusements and entry-level anarchism”, including the work of 46 other international artists. Other attractions include a cinema, mini golf, a circus tent and a ‘Guerilla Island’, a celebration of guerilla art, which will also give workshops ‘on how to hack billboards’. Live Friday night events include an evening with Kate Tempest, Pussy Riot and Massive Attack.

It’s an extraordinary, shocking and funny experience from the moment you step through the gates of Dismaland.

Dismaland will also include three large galleries, which together comprise “the finest collection of contemporary art ever assembled in a North Somerset seaside town,” according to the website.

Banksy’s twisted Disney, his most ambitious project since his New York residency,  features work by 13 American artists, including Jenny Holzer and Mike Ross, whose ‘Big Rig Jig’, an S-shaped sculpture of two, upended fuel tankers, is one of the biggest installations on the site.

The show also features a giant, damaged, Cinderella’s castle, an outsized pin wheel, works by Damien Hirst, and a huge scaffolding horse by Swedish artist Ben Long. Dismaland will be open every day until September 27.

Up until today, the town council had spent months telling locals and tourists the elaborate cover story that the massive installations being built on the site were part of a film set for an upcoming Hollywood crime thriller.

Once inside, every piece from more than 50 international artists is a twist on what you’d find in a seaside theme park.

Banksy himself has moved away from graffiti and street art in this exhibition, and instead his pieces are Banksy images rendered in 3-D - from the carousel with a passenger making lasagne from one of the horses, to a distressing piece about the current crisis off the seas of southern Europe, in which remote controlled boats have been taken over by migrants.

I seem to have reached the point where an art show is more interesting the less I'm in itBanksy

Banksy doesn't do interviews, so we asked him by email why he departed from street art?

He told Channel 4 News "for this show I didn't deliberately set out to snub street art. I just found other stuff a lot more interesting.

"I mean, we have a lady from a Lithuanian village who does traditional floral embroidery but with a power drill into the sides of cars.

"I seem to have reached the point where an art show is more interesting the less I'm in it."

The artist has described Dismaland as "a festival of art, amusements and entry level anarchism",

And the centrepiece of the Dismaland castle will not just outrage the nice people at Disney, but no doubt the legions of fans of Diana, the late Princess of Wales.

Banksy has taken two iconic pieces of imagery and turned them into something that is shocking, evocative and emotional.

Disney’s Cinderella carriage has crashed and is upturned, leaving the princess hanging lifeless from a window. The whole scene is illuminated by a blizzard of flash photography from the surrounding group of paparazzi photographers who were apparently in pursuit on their mopeds. 

"It's a theme park whose big theme is - theme parks should have bigger themes" said Banksy in a press release.

Dismaland opens to the public on Saturday. There will be 4,000 £3 tickets available every day until end of September for this "family theme park unsuitable for small children."

A Banksy Dismaland Facebook page, teasing the project, was set up on Tuesday, asking visitors “What will you be doing this weekend? Maybe a trip to the seaside?’

When rumors about the Banksy show surfaced earlier this week, people started traveling to the site from all over the region, and when ‘Dismaland’ officially opens on Friday, the trickle of Banksy fans coming to the town could turn into a flood – Bristol City Museum’s  ‘Banksy vs Bristol Museum’ exhibition in 2009 attracted over 300,000 visitors.