The Joke Is on the Buyer: "Banksy – A Vandal Turned Idol" at Kleisteck

An auctioneer points with an outstretched arm at a framed picture, bidders sit in rows in front of him, and the canvas going under the hammer reads: "I can't believe you morons actually buy this shit". Banksy's 2007 screenprint "Morons" hangs in "Banksy – A Vandal Turned Idol" at Kleisteck in Berlin, and it describes the show around it better than any wall text.

The exhibition is unauthorised. According to the organiser, Concertbüro Zahlmann, it brought together 18 originals and 43 prints from private collections, plus work by other artists such as Andy Warhol, a VR station and a media room. The collection had already been to Madrid, Milan, Lisbon, Las Vegas and Osaka. Berlin was its German premiere.

At the entrance the title stands in red letters above a monkey in headphones. Inside, the walls are dark and each sheet has its own spotlight. One wall holds three motifs side by side: a Madonna and child, mourners kneeling before a sign reading "SALE ENDS TODAY", and Christ on the cross holding shopping bags where the nails should be. It is a good grouping, because all three turn Christian devotion towards shopping.

"Monkey Queen" shows the monarch as a chimpanzee against an RAF roundel. At Kleisteck it sits in an ornate black frame of the kind you would expect round an ancestral portrait. The frame is not part of the work. It belongs to the exhibition, and it turns a lampoon into an object of devotion. That is the pattern throughout: Banksy's jokes about reverence are presented with reverence.

As an overview the show does its job. The well-known images are all there, well hung and easy to read, and anyone who knows Banksy only from a screen can see how cleanly these prints are made. What the exhibition lacks is any view of its own contradiction. It shows pictures against the art market, lent from private collections, and charges admission to see them.

In the last room a rat holds up a placard: "Get Out While You Can". It works as a sign for the exit.

"Banksy – A Vandal Turned Idol" was at Kleisteck, Martin-Luther-Straße 1A, Berlin, until 16 June 2024.