I can’t have been more than five minutes into my visit when I overheard a conversation between a couple of the security staff. Two young boys had been escorted out as they had only come inside to go straight to the exclusive gift shop and buy some merchandise to resell on the street for a higher price. I can’t help but feel Banksy would have applauded, or at least laughed off, this act of youthful entrepreneurship. The security guard, however, sounded livid in a way that only a Glaswegian woman can.

As the remaining, rule-abiding visitors carry on, we are introduced to all kinds of projects, some of which I already knew of and some I didn’t. Of course, I’d seen the viral moment Banksy shredded an artwork at an auction (an intricate infographic explains exactly how he pulled it off) and the vest he designed for Stormzy’s Glastonbury performance. However, I wasn’t aware of the controversial opening sequence depicting a sweatshop he designed for The Simpsons or the truck full of farmyard animal soft toys he drove to a slaughterhouse in New York.

My favourite artwork on display isn’t actually by Banksy. It’s a painting by landscape artist Peter Brown showing one of the streets where an iconic Banksy popped up. In fairness to him, the blurb next to it in which Banksy explains that the story which unfolds around his work is the real art.

The further into the exhibition you go, the more frequent and enlightening the accompanying text becomes. It’s like Banksy has been holding all of these anecdotes in for so long and, now he has started sharing them, he can’t stop.

As you near the end, the big questions are answered. Why did he start in the first? Heartbreak and revenge. What is street art to him? Art that can be viewed from a moving vehicle. Why does he still do it? It helps him sleep. Each of these answers is delivered as frankly and funnily as the last. You feel yourself warming to the narrator as if he is casually wandering around with you – and for all we know he could be. 

Fittingly for a Banksy exhibition, you exit through the gift shop. As you do so, you can unlock the pouches which your phones have been locked in for the duration of your visit (I have had to write this entire article based on frantic notes I typed out on the train because I forgot to bring a notebook – hopefully you didn’t notice). While there are so many things I am sure I would have taken photos of if I were allowed, I was glad to be banned from my phone during my visit. It was refreshing to be fully present while looking at a show you hadn’t seen any spoilers for on TikTok. 

CUT & RUN celebrates Banksy’s unparalleled career in a mysterious way that only he can. Each artwork on show is as iconic, rebellious and witty as the cone-topped statue sitting outside which brought the exhibition to Glasgow. The fact that the most radical thing he could do after 25 years was to place his art inside an art gallery speaks to just how unique a trail Banksy has blazed.