Banksy is the pseudonym of a British graffiti artist, political activist and painter, whose identity is unconfirmed. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine irreverent dark humour with graffiti done in a distinctive stencilling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world.
Banksy's work was born out of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians. According to author and graphic designer Tristan Manco, Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s." Observers have noted that his style is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris and members of the anarcho-punk band Crass who maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Tube System in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Known for his contempt for the government in labeling graffiti as vandalism merely because it does not serve a profit to them, Banksy displays his art on public surfaces such as walls and even going as far as to build physical prop pieces. Banksy does not sell photos of street graffiti directly himself; however, art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder. Banksy's first film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, billed as "the world's first street art disaster movie", made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. The film was released in the UK on 5 March.
Career
Early career (1992–2001)
. Following popular support, the City Council have decided it will be allowed to remain – (
wider view).]] Banksy began as a freehand graffiti artist 1992–1994 as one of Bristol's DryBreadZ Crew (DBZ), with Kato and Tes. He was inspired by local artists and his work was part of the larger
Bristol underground scene. From the start he used stencils as elements of his freehand pieces, too. and by employing this technique, he soon became more widely noticed for his art around Bristol and London.]] Banksy's stencils feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans. The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist or anti-establishment. Subjects often include rats, monkeys, policemen, soldiers, children, and the elderly.
Exhibitions (2002–03)
On 19 July 2002, Banksy's first Los Angeles exhibition debuted at 33 1/3 Gallery, a tiny Silverlake venue owned by Frank Sosa. The exhibition, entitled
Existencilism, was curated by 33 1/3 Gallery, Malathion, Funk Lazy Promotions, and B+.
In 2003 in an exhibition called Turf War, held in a warehouse, Banksy painted on animals. Although the RSPCA declared the conditions suitable, an animal rights activist chained herself to the railings in protest. He later moved on to producing subverted paintings; one example is Monet's Water Lily Pond, adapted to include urban detritus such as litter and a shopping trolley floating in its reflective waters; another is Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, redrawn to show that the characters are looking at a British football hooligan, dressed only in his Union Flag underpants, who has just thrown an object through the glass window of the cafe. These oil paintings were shown at a twelve-day exhibition in Westbourne Grove, London in 2005. , East End, 2004. ]]
Banksy, along with Shepard Fairey, Dmote and others created work at a warehouse exhibition in Alexandria, Sydney for Semi-Permanent in 2003. Approximately 1,500 people attended.
£10 notes to Barely Legal (2004–06)
In August 2004, Banksy produced a quantity of spoof British £10 notes substituting the picture of the Queen's head with
Diana, Princess of Wales's head and changing the text "Bank of England" to "Banksy of England." Someone threw a large wad of these into a crowd at Notting Hill Carnival that year, which some recipients then tried to spend in local shops. These notes were also given with invitations to a Santa's Ghetto exhibition by Pictures on Walls. The individual notes have since been selling on
eBay for about £200 each. A wad of the notes were also thrown over a fence and into the crowd near the NME signing tent at The Reading Festival. A limited run of 50 signed posters containing ten uncut notes were also produced and sold by Pictures on Walls for £100 each to commemorate the death of Princess Diana. One of these sold in October 2007 at
Bonhams auction house in London for £24,000. .]]
In August 2005, Banksy, on a trip to the Palestinian territories, created nine images on the Israeli West Bank wall.
Banksy held an exhibition called Barely Legal, billed as a "three day vandalised warehouse extravaganza" in Los Angeles, on the weekend of September 16. The exhibition featured a live "elephant in a room", painted in a pink and gold floral wallpaper pattern. Banksy also made art works displaying Queen Victoria as a lesbian. He also created satirical art that incorporated art made by Andy Warhol and Leonardo da Vinci (Mona Lisa).
The Banksy effect (2006–2007)
After
Christina Aguilera bought an original of Queen Victoria as a lesbian and two prints for £25,000, on 19 October 2006 a set of
Kate Moss paintings sold in
Sotheby's London for £50,400, setting an auction record for Banksy's work. The six silk-screen prints, featuring the model painted in the style of
Andy Warhol's
Marilyn Monroe pictures, sold for five times their estimated value. His stencil of a green
Mona Lisa with real paint dripping from her eyes sold for £57,600 at the same auction. In December, journalist
Max Foster coined the phrase, "the Banksy effect", to illustrate how interest in other street artists was growing on the back of Banksy's success.
On 21 February 2007, Sotheby's auction house in London auctioned three works, reaching the highest ever price for a Banksy work at auction: over £102,000 for his Bombing Middle England. Two of his other graffiti works, Balloon Girl and Bomb Hugger, sold for £37,200 and £31,200 respectively, which were well above their estimated prices. The following day's auction saw a further three Banksy works reach soaring prices: Ballerina With Action Man Parts reached £96,000; Glory sold for £72,000; Untitled (2004) sold for £33,600; all significantly above estimated values. To coincide with the second day of auctions, Banksy updated his website with a new image of an auction house scene showing people bidding on a picture that said, "I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit."
In April 2007, Transport for London painted over Banksy's iconic image of a scene from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, featuring Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta clutching bananas instead of guns. Although the image was very popular, Transport for London claimed that the "graffiti" created "a general atmosphere of neglect and social decay which in turn encourages crime" and their staff are "professional cleaners not professional art critics". Banksy tagged the same site again (pictured at right). This time the actors were portrayed as holding real guns instead of bananas, but they were adorned with banana costumes. Banksy made a tribute art piece over this second Pulp Fiction piece. The tribute was for 19-year-old British graffiti artist Ozone who, along with fellow artist Wants, was hit by an underground train in Barking, East London on 12 January 2007. The piece was of an angel wearing a bullet-proof vest holding a skull. He also wrote a note on his website saying:
The last time I hit this spot I painted a crap picture of two men in banana costumes waving hand guns. A few weeks later a writer called Ozone completely dogged it and then wrote 'If it's better next time I'll leave it' in the bottom corner. When we lost Ozone we lost a fearless graffiti writer and as it turns out a pretty perceptive art critic. Ozone – rest in peace.
On 27 April 2007, a new record high for the sale of Banksy's work was set with the auction of the work
Space Girl & Bird fetching £288,000 (US$576,000) around 20 times the estimate at
Bonhams of London. On 21 May 2007 Banksy gained the award for Art's
Greatest living Briton. Banksy, as expected, did not turn up to collect his award and continued with his notoriously anonymous status. On 4 June 2007, it was reported that Banksy's
The Drinker had been stolen. In October 2007, most of his works offered for sale at
Bonhams auction house in London sold for more than twice their reserve price.
, June 2007]]
Banksy has published a "manifesto" on his website. The text of the manifesto is credited as the diary entry of one Lieutenant Colonel Mervin Willett Gonin, DSO, which is exhibited in the Imperial War Museum. It describes how a shipment of lipstick to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp immediately after its liberation at the end of World War II helped the internees regain their humanity. However, as of 18 January 2008, Banksy's Manifesto has been substituted with Graffiti Heroes #03 that describes Peter Chappell's graffiti quest of the 1970s that worked to free George Davis of his imprisonment. By 12 August 2009 he was relying on Emo Philips' "When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised God doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and prayed for forgiveness." A small number of Banksy's works can be seen in the movie Children of Men, including a stenciled image of two policemen kissing and another stencil of a child looking down a shop.
Banksy, who "is not represented by any of the commercial galleries that sell his work second hand (including Lazarides Ltd, Andipa Gallery, Bank Robber, Dreweatts etc)", claims that the exhibition at Vanina Holasek Gallery in New York (his first major exhibition in that city) is unauthorised. The exhibition featured 62 of his paintings and prints.
2008
In March, a stencilled graffiti work appeared on
Thames Water tower in the middle of the
Holland Park roundabout, and it was widely attributed to Banksy. It was of a child painting the tag "Take this Society" in bright orange.
London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham spokesman, Councillor Greg Smith branded the art as vandalism, and ordered its immediate removal, which was carried out by H&F; council workmen within three days. Over the weekend 3–5 May in London, Banksy hosted an exhibition called
The Cans Festival. It was situated on
Leake Street, a road tunnel formerly used by Eurostar underneath
London Waterloo station. Graffiti artists with stencils were invited to join in and paint their own artwork, as long as it did not cover anyone else's. Artists included
Blek le Rat, Broken Crow, C215,
Cartrain, Dolk, Dotmasters, J.Glover,
Ben Eine, Eelus, Hero, Pure evil,
Jef Aérosol,
Mr Brainwash, Tom Civil and Roadsworth. of New Orleans, August 2008]] In late August 2008, marking the third anniversary of
Hurricane Katrina and the associated
levee failure disaster, Banksy produced a series of works in
New Orleans, Louisiana, mostly on buildings derelict since the disaster. A stencil painting attributed to Banksy appeared at a vacant petrol station in the
Ensley neighbourhood of
Birmingham, Alabama on 29 August as
Hurricane Gustav approached the New Orleans area. The painting depicting a hooded member of the
Ku Klux Klan hanging from a noose was quickly covered with black spray paint and later removed altogether. His first official exhibition in New York, the "Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill," opened 5 October 2008. The
animatronic pets in the store window include a mother hen watching over her baby
Chicken McNuggets as they peck at a barbecue sauce packet, and a rabbit putting makeup on in a mirror. .]] The
Westminster City Council stated in October 2008 that the work "One Nation Under CCTV", painted in April 2008 will be painted over as it is graffiti. The council says it will remove any graffiti, regardless of the reputation of its creator, and specifically stated that Banksy "has no more right to paint graffiti than a child". Robert Davis, the chairman of the council planning committee told
The Times newspaper: "If we condone this then we might as well say that any kid with a spray can is producing art".
2009
, June 2009]] In May 2009, Banksy parted company with agent Steve Lazarides and announced that Pest Control, the handling service who act on his behalf, would be the only point of sale for new works. On 13 June 2009, the Banksy UK Summer show opened at
Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, featuring more than 100 works of art, including animatronics and installations; it is his largest exhibition yet, featuring 78 new works. Reaction to the show was positive, with over 8,500 visitors to the show on the first weekend. Over the course of the twelve weeks, the exhibition was visited over 300,000 times. In September 2009, a Banksy work parodying the Royal Family was partially destroyed by Hackney Council after they served an enforcement notice for graffiti removal to the former address of the property owner. The mural had been commissioned for the 2003
Blur single "
Crazy Beat" and the property owner, who had allowed the piece to be painted, was reported to have been in tears when she saw it was being painted over. In December 2009, Banksy marked the end of the
2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference by painting four murals on global warming. One included "I don't believe in global warming" which was submerged in water.
Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
The world premiere of the film
Exit Through the Gift Shop occurred at the
Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on 24 January. He created 10 street pieces around Park City and Salt Lake City to tie in with the screening. In February,
The Whitehouse public house in
Liverpool, England, is sold for £114,000 at auction. The side of the building has an image of a giant rat by Banksy. In March 2010, the work "Forgive us our Trespassing" was displayed at the Londoner underground. The work had to be displayed without the halo over the boy's head. After a few days the halo was repainted and the poster was removed by Tube advertising bosses. The display was organised by
Art Below a London based public art agency. In April 2010, Melbourne City Council in Australia reported that they had inadvertently ordered private contractors to paint over the last remaining Banksy art in the city. The image was of a rat descending in a parachute adorning the wall of an old council building behind the Forum Theatre. In 2008, vandals had poured paint over a stencil of an old-fashioned diver wearing a trenchcoat. A council spokeswoman has said they would now rush through retrospective permits to protect other "famous or significant artworks" in the city. In April 2010, to coincide with the premiere of
Exit Through the Gift Shop in San Francisco, five of his pieces appeared in various parts of the city. Banksy reportedly paid a
Chinatown building owner $50 for the use of their wall for one of his stencils. In early May 2010, seven new Banksy pieces appeared in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, though most have been subsequently painted over or removed. In May 2010, to coincide with the premiere of
Exit through the Gift Shop in Royal Oak, Banksy visited the Detroit area and left his mark in several places, two in Warren and at least three in Detroit. (Article states two in Warren and one in Detroit, which is factually inaccurate.) Shortly after the Detroit piece showing a little boy holding a can of red paint next to the words "I remember when all this was trees" was excavated by the 555 Nonprofit Gallery and Studios. They claim that they do not intend to sell the work but plan to preserve it and display it at their Detroit gallery. There was also an attempted removal of one of the Warren pieces known as "Diamond Girl".
Banksy was also credited with the opening couch gag for the 2010 The Simpsons episode "MoneyBART", depicting people working in deplorable conditions and using endangered or mythical animals to make both the episodes cel-by-cel and the merchandise connected with the program. His name appears several times throughout the episode's opening sequence, spray-painted on assorted walls and signs.
Notable art pieces
In regards to personal fame, Banksy has stated that "We don’t need any more heroes; we just need someone to take out the recycling." However, in addition to his artwork, Banksy has claimed responsibility for a number of high profile art pieces, including the following: At London Zoo, he climbed into the penguin enclosure and painted "We're bored of fish" in letters. At Bristol Zoo, he left the message 'I want out. This place is too cold. Keeper smells. Boring, boring, boring.' in the elephant enclosure. In March 2005, he placed subverted artworks in the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. In May 2005 Banksy's version of a primitive cave painting depicting a human figure hunting wildlife whilst pushing a shopping trolley was hung in gallery 49 of the British Museum, London. Upon discovery, they added it to their permanent collection. In August 2005, Banksy painted nine images on the Israeli West Bank barrier, including an image of a ladder going up and over the wall and an image of children digging a hole through the wall.
In April 2006, Banksy created a sculpture based on a crumpled red phone box with a pickaxe in its side, apparently bleeding, and placed it in a side street in Soho, London. It was later removed by Westminster Council. BT released a press release, which said: "This is a stunning visual comment on BT's transformation from an old-fashioned telecommunications company into a modern communications services provider."
in London, painted over by August 2008. Notice the animals resembling cave art from Lascaux or Altamira.]]
In June 2006, Banksy created an image of a naked man hanging out of a bedroom window on a wall visible from Park Street in central Bristol. The image sparked some controversy, with the Bristol City Council leaving it up to the public to decide whether it should stay or go. After an internet discussion in which 97% (all but 6 people) supported the stencil, the city council decided it would be left on the building. In August/September 2006, Banksy replaced up to 500 copies of Paris Hilton's debut CD, Paris, in 48 different UK record stores with his own cover art and remixes by Danger Mouse. Music tracks were given titles such as "Why am I Famous?", "What Have I Done?" and "What Am I For?". Several copies of the CD were purchased by the public before stores were able to remove them, some going on to be sold for as much as £750 on online auction websites such as eBay. The cover art depicted Paris Hilton digitally altered to appear topless. Other pictures feature her with a dog's head replacing her own, and one of her stepping out of a luxury car, edited to include a group of homeless people, which included the caption "90% of success is just showing up". In September 2006, Banksy dressed an inflatable doll in the manner of a Guantanamo Bay detainment camp prisoner (orange jumpsuit, black hood, and handcuffs) and then placed the figure within the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride at the Disneyland theme park in Anaheim, California.
He also makes stickers (the Neighbourhood Watch subvert) and sculpture (the murdered phone-box), and was responsible for the cover art of Blur's 2003 album Think Tank.
Technique
Asked about his technique, Banksy said: }}
Stencils are traditionally hand drawn or printed onto sheets of acetate or card, before being cut out by hand. Because of the secretive nature of Banksy's work and identity, it is uncertain what techniques he uses to generate the images in his stencils, though it is assumed he uses computers for some images due to the photocopy nature of much of his work.
He mentions in his book, Wall and Piece, that as he was starting to do graffiti, he was always too slow and was either caught or could never finish the art in the one sitting. So he devised a series of intricate stencils to minimise time and overlapping of the colour.
Political and social themes
Banksy's works have dealt with an array of political and social themes, including anti-War, anti-capitalism, anti-fascism, anti-imperialism, anti-authoritarianism, anarchism, nihilism, and existentialism. Additionally, the components of the human condition that his works commonly critique are greed, poverty, hypocrisy, boredom, despair, absurdity, and alienation. Although Banksy's works usually rely on visual imagery and iconography to put forth his message, he has made several politically related comments in his various books. In summarising his list of "people who should be shot", he listed "Fascist thugs, religious fundamentalists, (and) people who write lists telling you who should be shot." While facetiously describing his political nature, Banksy declared that "Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world, I can’t even finish my second apple pie."
Identity
Banksy's real name has been widely reported to be Robert, Robden, Robin Gunningham or Robin Banks. His date of birth has been given as July 28, 1973 (according to the Daily Mail—see below).
Simon Hattenstone from Guardian Unlimited is one of the very few people to have interviewed him face-to-face. Hattenstone describes him as "a cross of Jimmy Nail and British rapper Mike Skinner" and "a 28 year old male who showed up wearing jeans and a t-shirt with a silver tooth, silver chain, and one silver earring". In the same interview, Banksy claimed that his parents think their son is a painter and decorator.
In July 2008, it was claimed by The Mail on Sunday that Banksy's real name is Robin Gunningham. His agent has refused to confirm or deny these reports.
In May 2009, the Mail on Sunday once again speculated about Gunningham being Banksy after a "self-portrait" of a rat holding a sign with the word "Gunningham" shot on it was photographed in East London. This "new Banksy rat" story was also picked up by The Times and the Evening Standard.
Banksy, himself, states on his website: }}
Critics
Peter Gibson, a spokesperson for
Keep Britain Tidy, asserts that Banksy's work is simple vandalism, and Diane Shakespeare, an official for the same organization, was quoted as saying: "We are concerned that Banksy's street art glorifies what is essentially vandalism".
[ ]
Bibliography
Banksy has self-published several books that contain photographs of his work in various countries as well as some of his canvas work and exhibitions, accompanied by his own writings: Banksy, Banging Your Head Against A Brick Wall (2001) ISBN 978-0-95417040-0 Banksy, Existencilism (2002) ISBN 978-0-95417041-7 Banksy, Cut it Out (2004) ISBN 978-0-95449600-5 Banksy, Wall and Piece (2005) ISBN 978-1-84413786-2 Banksy, Pictures of Walls (2005) ISBN 978-0-95519460-3 Random House published Wall and Piece in 2005. It contains a combination of images from his three previous books, as well as some new material.[ ] Two books about his work, authored by others, were originally published in 2006 and 2007:
Martin Bull, Banksy Locations and Tours: A Collection of Graffiti Locations and Photographs in London">Banksy Locations and Tours: A Collection of Graffiti Locations and Photographs in London (2006 – with new editions in 2007, 2008 and 2010) ISBN 978-09554712-47. Steve Wright, Banksy's Bristol: Home Sweet Home (2007) ISBN 978-19064770-04
References
External links
Banksy Street Art Photos Banksy Images – from Flickr Banksy Works – from Artnet Banksy Gallery – by BBC News Banksy v Bristol Museum – slideshow by BBC Banksy Under the Hammer – slideshow by The First Post Banksy on the West Bank – slideshow by The First Post Banksy: In Plain Sight – exhibition slideshow by The New Yorker Category:English artists Category:Culture jamming Category:Public art Category:1974 births Category:Living people Category:People from Bristol Category:United Kingdom graffiti artists Category:Unidentified people Category:Anonymous artists
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