Girl Friday: Banksy has put us on the map

It would be remiss of me to talk about anything but Banksy this week.

Yes, Bristol's favourite art-hooligan son has finally stopped pulling pathetic pranks and is sitting back, lazily counting his auction profits to deliver something to his home city that's original, thought-provoking, witty and – best of all – free of charge.

When I first moved to Bristol, spotting Banksy's graffiti on city buildings was all part of the thrill of living here. And every time I visited London, particularly Shoreditch, I'd look out for his art, especially his cunning rats.

His wit has always been the thing I admire the most, his ability to be funny as well as political, which of course is a much more effective weapon in getting your point across – are you listening, Billy Bragg?

I went to see the Banksy Versus Bristol Museum exhibition this week – and loved it. Packed with ideas and fresh thinking, new twists on the old and white-hot wit, it's fiendishly clever. The animatronics are so realistic you do a double-take and there's comedy on all levels, from cheap, accessible laughs that make children giggle to more political statements, both subtle and in-your-face.

I loved the fact that queuing up with me to get in were inquisitive pensioners and whole families from all over Bristol – some of whom told me they'd never seen an art exhibition before – as well as families, city centre workers on their lunch break, students and art lovers, some of whom had travelled many miles. What else attracts such a cross-section of society?

And what a good idea to entice visitors all over the museum with a 'Banksy treasure hunt', studying each glass case and gold frame to try and spot a Banksy artwork among the regular exhibits and paintings.

One of the museum staff told me he'd never known it so busy.

I asked one Bristol family who viewed the exhibition (mum, dad, nan and three teenagers) when was the last time they all went out and did something together – and they couldn't remember.

But is it art? Hell yeah.

To some, however, Banksy will never be anything more than a petty criminal.

Now, obviously he commits criminal damage every time he sprays paint on a wall he doesn't own – although I suspect these days that's done largely by his dedicated team of night-time stealth-sprayers, eh Banksy?

But surely any onlooker can spot the difference between Banksy's work and the uninspired morass of tags that litter this city.

Apart from him being an internationally famous artist, making his artworks incredibly valuable and therefore worthy of not being whitewashed, he hasn't just scrawled his made-up name all over the place in various forms, unlike so many taggers high on ego and low on imagination. Banksy's work is so much more than that. And graffiti is now just part of his art.

If you want to be corporate about it, Banksy is an incredibly important part of "brand Bristol". All over the world I've been asked where I live, and when I say "Bristol" the immediate response from all ages is "ahhh, Banksy". Like Massive Attack before him, he's put us on the map.

The thing that impresses me most about this new Banksy exhibition is that admission is free. He could have charged all entrants big money and filled the place daily. But no, it's free, meaning that every one of us – rich and poor – can pop along and see it for ourselves.

And I urge you to do so. Don't take the lazy, close-minded, knee-jerk reactionary stance purely from the media hype – go and see the exhibition for yourself and then decide what you think of it.