Banksy exhibition opens in New York

Bristol graffiti artist Banksy today opened his first exhibtion in New York.

He has set up a fake pet supply shop, complete with large furry animals, rhesus monkeys and rabbits, in Manhattan.

But the would-be creatures are all fakes created by the artist who aimed to question "our relationship with animals and the ethics and sustainability of factory farming" in his work at The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill.

"New Yorkers don't care about art, they care about pets," he said. "So I'm exhibiting them instead."

His exhibition, which contains no paintings or graffiti, features a robot monkey wearing headphones and watching television in a cage, a fake-rabbit wearing a pearl necklace, and chicken nuggets with legs, busily dipping themselves in sauce.

"I wanted to make art that questioned our relationship with animals and the ethics and sustainability of factory farming, but it ended up as chicken nuggets singing," Banksy said.

"There have been complaints from people unhappy about seeing two hot dogs performing a sex act whilst on their way into work. But it's no more unnatural than the process behind making a sausage in the first place."

Referring to painting a live Indian elephant in a Los Angeles exhibition, he added: "I took all the money I made exploiting an animal in my last show and used it to fund a new show about the exploitation of animals."

The New York Times said today: "Banksy's statements, like much of his pranksterish oeuvre, should be taken with a grain of salt.

"But there's no denying the show's attention to comically pointed detail."

The secretive artist, 34, from Bristol, has regularly courted controversy with a series of daring projects.

In 2005 he targeted a security wall in Israel, creating nine stencil sprays on the Palestinian side of the West Bank barrier.

He also placed a painting of a can of Tesco value tomato soup and a woman wearing a gas mask in art galleries in New York.

The British Museum fell prey to one of Banksy's most famous art pranks when he placed a hoax exhibit – entitled Early Man Goes To Market – on the wall, where it went unnoticed by staff for hours.

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