Rhiannon Harries: 'There's a guerrilla in Bristol's midst, but that's no reason to go barmy'

On My Mind

Quick! Only two days left to queue for six hours to see the Banksy exhibition at Bristol Museum (pictured)! Hail a taxi! Hop a steamer! Commandeer a passing tuk-tuk! Just get there! Sorry, I'll be OK in a moment. It's just that after a few days spent in my West Country home-town I, too, have contracted Banksy fever, a cultural virus that has swept through the local population, putting H1N1 to shame, dominating local headlines, pub conversations and Facebook status updates day in, day out for the past three months. And as the closing date approaches, it has grown more hysterical.

I should clarify that I am not among the 300,000 to have seen the exhibition by the world's favourite grafitti artist. I naively thought I'd pop along at 9am on a weekday, before discovering an 80-strong queue and thinking better of it. But that's all right: my near-queuing experience means I now have a Banksy story to tell, and there is no topic of conversation more popular in these parts now than "How I managed/didn't manage to see Banksy vs Bristol Museum".

Robert Chandler, a media exec who I spotted in the Bristol Evening Post, is campaigning to extend the exhibition. He, like many Bristolians, is upset that more people won't have a chance to view close-up Banksy's rejigged Old Masters and chickens laying McDonald's-style nuggets. "August 31 will be like a funeral, like losing a long-lost friend," he says, a touch melodramatically for someone who admits he hasn't yet been to the show.

Oddly enough, those most passionate about keeping the exhibition open tend to be those who haven't braved the queues. As low-maintenance as protests such as a group on Facebook may be, surely it's not that much effort to write off a day, take a packed lunch and endure the wait? Or even emulate the guerrilla spirit of the artist himself? A friend of mine pulled off a sneaky side-door entrance, planned with heist-like precision.

I didn't bother queuing, as the works I like best are those that sprung up on walls in Bristol during my teenage years, when I'd no idea who their creator was. It seems strange that so many native Bristolians have whipped themselves up into such a frenzy over the museum show, when they don't seem interested in just walking round the city and seeing some Banksy in situ.

Banksy has realised the dream of most traditional cultural institutions – attracting large numbers who might not have visited ordinarily, and certainly not with such zeal. He's convinced people that street art is worthy of appreciation in a gallery – but it would be more impressive still to persuade people that there is plenty of art to be enjoyed by simply getting out on the street.