Forget the Met and forget the Guggenheim, if you want to see real art, in all its original boldness and vitality, the streets is where you need to be.

Photo Credit: http://www.banksyny.com

Throughout October, the city will be literally transformed into a museum of modern art, featuring graffiti paintings by renowned English street artist Banksy.

Banksy’s month long show titled Better Out Than In (which was first publicized through one of his installments in LA some months ago) has already taken to the streets with his first painting, depicting two boys reaching up to touch a sign that reads “graffiti is a crime.”, having been located in Chinatown.

The aspect of Banksy’s show that really transforms the city into a museum however is his accompanying audio guide. Stenciled next to each piece is a phone number (1-800-656-4271) which viewers can call to listen to Banksy’s supplementary commentary. The recording for Banksy’s first piece satirized a typical museum audio-guide with comments such as  “The children in this case represent youth, and the sign represents – well, signs.” and in the end the narrator repudiated any possible art-curator analysis of Banksy’s piece and beckoned to the listener to form their own thoughts on the piece.

Although this show is already set to go down in history as a timeless one, the pieces are unfortunately not as everlasting. Banksy’s Chinatown piece has already been painted over and as he predicts his later pieces will most probably face similar fates. However, they can still be viewed online on his website and on his newfound Instagram. So far Banksy has produced three pieces as part of this installment, and it has been speculated that he intends to create one for every day of the month, so keep your eyes peeled, the next piece of graffiti artwork you see could in fact belong to the legend himself.

Photo Credit: http://www.banksyny.com