Is this art?

Teaching and public life strangely coincided last week. When I asked my students what art is according to them, the British "guerilla-artist" Banksy made his own comment on the art world by hanging his paintings in between other, more prestigious ones at four museums in New York. Bringing art into the museum – it is something else completely than trying to take it away. Banksy's art is art of the street. He started out as a graffiti artist – a bit like Keith Haring, maybe. The idea behind invading museums with his work is the thought "Hey, I can do this as well and my work has as much right to hang here." Banksy comments on art that predates his own work and so places himself in an older tradition that states art is in the first place a constant reflection on art history and on our society. It reminds me of the Sunday before Easter when a procession of characters from James Ensor's Christ's Entry into Brussels walked through the streets of Brussels. Christ's Entry is one of Ensor's most fascinating works and it hangs in the Getty Museum in L.A. It would be coming to Belgium for the celebration of 175 years of ... well erm ... Belgium. The Getty Museum didn't want to lend such a prestigious work. One can ask why it was sold to the U.S. in the first place. The street art of re-enacting this painting is an immediate critique on Getty and on Belgium for selling the painting, like Banksy criticises the one-sidedness of choosing paintings that can have a bit of wall space in a museum.