Endless Art Basel Traffic Jam Not Banksy Installation Says City

Endless Art Basel Traffic Jam Not Banksy Installation Says City

The art scene is in a tizzy over a 200,000-car traffic jam throughout Miami Beach that many believe is a conceptual art installation by world-renowned artist Banksy. “I think it’s like super brilliant and also like thebomb.com that Banksy is in Miami now,” said local Victoria Melendez as she took a snap of the mass of unmoving cars that surrounded her on Alton Road. “#Blessed to get to experience a @Banksy! #ArtBasel2019,” the 23-year-old tweeted to her 56 followers.

The authenticity of the mysterious art installation is being questioned, however, after the City of Miami Beach issued a press release that the traffic jam is not art, but rather just the natural consequence of a million tourists that are better looking and richer than you (yes, you) interacting with the decades of poor planning that is Miami’s transit system. The City warns locals to avoid high-density traffic areas (including everywhere) during Art Basel and asks residents forced to go to the Miami Beach not to take or pose with the traffic jam on account that doing so would contribute to the congestion and also make you look like a real idiot.

Art critics, however, are unconvinced by the City’s assertion that Banksy had nothing to do with the traffic, arguing that having the City deny his involvement is the exact sort of thing Banksy would do. The Plantain spoke to a bespectacled Jeff Goldblum-type from New York about his thoughts on the traffic jam who called the exhibit “an irreverent attack on our tech-centric culture that forces society to embraces the literal contradiction of how scientific advancements can offer a shelter for our own humanity,” that is “thought-provoking, blissful, and maddening. Like all of Banksy’s work.”