There have been many great artists that have come and gone since the history of pop culture has first been recorded. One of the most elusive artists of this generation has to be street artist Banksy. Banksy is a pseudonym of the artist and their identity still remains unconfirmed. Since the '90s Banksy has displayed his satirical street art on streets, walls, and bridges throughout the world. They are known to combine dark humor and the artist's distinctive stenciling technique. But who is this elusive and provocative artist? What motivates Banksy to create their art, and where do they operate out from?
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00:00Banksy's works in very existence continue to entice, entertain, provoke, and baffle
00:06audiences all over the world.
00:08But who is he, and where did he come from?
00:11Here's a look at the untold truth of Banksy.
00:14Even global art icons have to start somewhere, and Banksy's somewhere was Bristol, UK.
00:20He started painting walls as part of a gang called the Dry Breads Crew, and at first,
00:24he was a fairly conventional freehand artist.
00:27According to Smithsonian Magazine, Banksy was known to run in Bristol's down-market,
00:31working-class Barton Hill district, though he actually hailed from a wealthier part of
00:35town himself.
00:37He has said that he found the area fairly intimidating, especially because his father
00:41once got beaten up there.
00:43Banksy's street artist name was a process of trial and error.
00:46He originally experimented with monikers such as Robin Banks, a play on robbing banks.
00:51However, he ultimately settled on the decidedly less gangster-like Banksy, because he felt
00:56it packed more of a punch and was also vastly easier to spray on the wall.
01:00This focus on quickness would also eventually be crucial in the development of his signature
01:05art style.
01:07Banksy has worked with installations, elaborate sculptures, film, and even plain old paint
01:11on canvas.
01:12However, he's best known for his stencil graffiti works.
01:15According to Smithsonian Magazine, the artist realized the possibilities of stencil technique
01:20when he was 18 years old, and realized he needed to be faster with his graffiti to avoid
01:25the cops.
01:27That's when he was inspired to use stencils, which he said also had the bonus of carrying
01:30a symbolic message.
01:32All graffiti is low-level descent, but stencils have an extra history.
01:36They've been used to start revolutions and to stop wars.
01:39Of course, there are other versions of the story, too, with the BBC noting that Banksy's
01:43stencil works are strongly influenced by a French artist called Blech the Rat, who has
01:48been doing stencil graffiti for decades.
01:51So maybe Banksy's work isn't quite as innovative as you might have thought.
01:56According to Smithsonian Magazine, Banksy moved his base operations to London sometime
02:00around 1999.
02:02This was also when he started truly embracing anonymity, reportedly for at least two reasons.
02:08One was his desire to avoid the police, and the other was his realization that working
02:12as a faceless artist would bring an extra layer of mystery to his work.
02:16Whatever the reason, as his street art started popping up in various cities, the enigmatic
02:20Banksy started drawing comparisons to heavyweights of graffiti art, such as Keith Haring.
02:25Soon, the serious art circles couldn't resist him.
02:28In 2001, Banksy and a group of other street artists set up a successful guerrilla exhibition
02:33in a tunnel in London's Rivington Street.
02:36Two years later, he mounted his own turf war expedition in a repurposed warehouse in Hackney.
02:41It was a massive success, and the art circles of the city fell head over heels for his carnivalistic
02:46themes, which included a live cow with an Andy Warhol portrait on its side, along with
02:51a chimpanzee version of Queen Elizabeth II.
02:54Just like that, Banksy had taken over.
02:58Banksy has also gained notoriety by smuggling his own artwork into high-profile museums.
03:03According to Smithsonian Magazine, he seems to have started the practice in 2003, when
03:08he snuck an oil painting called Crime Watch UK Has Ruined the Countryside for All of Us
03:13into Tate Britain.
03:14Since then, he has performed similar art insertion stunts in several major museums, including
03:19the iconic Louvre, the British Museum, and New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
03:24Don't think for a second that Banksy limits himself to just museums, though.
03:28In 2013, he went to New York and created a series of artwork stunts across the city that
03:33drew citywide attention from fans and detractors alike, and caused Mayor Michael Bloomberg
03:38to send the NYPD's Anti-Vandal Squad out to capture him.
03:42"...you running up to somebody's property or public property and defacing it is not
03:48my definition of art."
03:50One of Banksy's most high-profile and mysterious artistic endeavors was the 2010 feature documentary
03:55Exit Through the Gift Shop, which he both directed and appeared in.
03:59The film tells the story of Terry, Mr. Brainwash Gweta, an amateur filmmaker who became obsessed
04:05with recording the nascent street art movement and some of its best-known names, including
04:09Banksy.
04:10Partway through the movie, though, the roles get reversed, as Gweta becomes a successful
04:14street artist while his subject Banksy takes over the making of the film, which is now
04:18about Gweta.
04:20"...when this guy tried to make a documentary about me, he was actually a lot more interesting
04:24than I am, so now the film is kind of about him."
04:29Seeing as noted prankster Banksy is credited as the director, and the film seems a lot
04:33like mocking commentary of the art world, people have suspected that Mr. Brainwash is
04:38actually Banksy's creation, and Gweta is just an actor.
04:42However, both men have insisted that the events of the movie are entirely true.
04:46Besides, The Guardian notes that Gweta has been sued for some copyright issues with his
04:50art, which suggests there's at least some validity to the claim that he's a separate
04:54artistic entity.
04:55"...it was at that point I realized that maybe Terry wasn't actually a filmmaker and he was
05:01maybe just someone with mental problems who happened to have a camera."
05:06Banksy is known for using political themes in his art, and sometimes, he brings his work
05:10to places where it delivers the maximum impact.
05:13In 2005, he traveled to the West Bank Barrier, which separates Israel from Palestine.
05:19There he painted no less than nine highly elaborate pieces on the Palestinian side of
05:23the barrier.
05:24Apart from artistic merit, this was pretty impressive, because the area is heavily guarded
05:29and the pieces were rather large.
05:31All nine had political overtones, with a connecting theme of searching for paradise.
05:35And according to Essential Magazine, Banksy returned to the scene in 2017, when he opened
05:40a walled-off hotel, a very real hotel just by the barrier.
05:44In an example of refreshingly honest advertising combined with typical Banksy dark humor, the
05:49business' tagline was,
05:51"...the worst view in the world."
05:52The West Bank Barrier isn't the only heavily guarded area Banksy has managed to infiltrate.
05:57As the BBC reports, in 2006, the artist somehow managed to smuggle a life-sized replica of
06:03a hooded, orange-clad Guantanamo Bay prisoner into Disneyland, and managed to set it up
06:08inside the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride area.
06:11The figure reportedly remained there for 90 minutes before it was removed.
06:16Speaking of Disneyland, perhaps Banksy's biggest flop was his large-scale 2015 exhibit, Dismaland,
06:22a self-described amusement park.
06:24"...welcome to Dismaland."
06:27The twisted, sinister Disneyland parody contained works by Banksy himself and a group of famous
06:32artists, including major names like Damien Hirst.
06:35From its ruined, rotting fairytale castles and police van fountains to the long lines,
06:40elaborate security, and perma-grimacing personnel, it was custom-designed to be a sarcastic,
06:45kitschy experience.
06:46The public certainly seemed to like it, to the point that the ticket website crashed.
06:51However, some critics expressed disdain for the massive exhibit's easy sarcasm, cheap
06:55shots, and ultimately meaningless nature.
06:58Mike Noodleman of Business Insider called Dismaland, quote, "...bad and boring."
07:03The Guardian's Jonathan Jones described the experience in a similar fashion, calling it,
07:07quote, "...thin, threadbare, and quite boring.
07:10Ouch."
07:11Regardless of what you think about Banksy's actual art, there's no denying the fact that
07:15his impact on the art scene has been massive.
07:17His global popularity has not only turned his work from vandal street art to valued
07:22high art, but it has also influenced the value of graffiti street art in general, something
07:27journalist Max Foster called the Banksy Effect.
07:30As such, Banksy's stunts have been key to the legitimization of street art as a valued
07:34art form.
07:35Though he's not considered a pioneer in street art like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Banksy's fame
07:40and mainstream popularity has been instrumental in developing the movement and helping it
07:45find its market.
07:46The Maddox Gallery even compares the elusive artist to Andy Warhol, because both men have,
07:51quote, "...redefined what art is to a lot of people."
07:54While monetizing art might not seem like the most noble endeavor, it's actually pretty
07:59useful not just for the artists themselves, but also for the environment they operate
08:03in.
08:04For instance, Banksy's original stomping ground, Bristol, has benefited both culturally and
08:09economically from the fact that it's full of street art by one of the world's most famous
08:13artists.
08:14Not everyone likes Banksy, and the people who don't appreciate his art are often quick
08:19to make their opinions known.
08:20As such, his work is the subject of periodical backlashes and bouts of criticism.
08:25In 2009, The Telegraph reported that a protest group known as Appropriate Media defaced one
08:30of Banksy's earlier works to protest the fact that the artist was too, quote, "...middle
08:35class," and Banksy's month-long, stunt-filled 2013 residency in New York City was a mixed
08:41bag plagued by vandals and detractors.
08:43Some Banksy critics, like Alexander Adams of The Critic and Jonathan Jones of The Guardian,
08:48have taken issue with the perceived lack of depth in the artist's work.
08:52Adams wrote, quote,
08:53How did such banality hoodwink so many people?
08:56While Jones has written that the overwhelming popularity of Banksy's famous Girl with Balloon
09:01is, quote, "...proof of our stupidity," critics also point out the artist's wealth and fame,
09:06which doesn't seem to mesh too well with the anti-capitalist themes which are often present
09:10in his work.
09:11To be fair, though, it's hard to see Banksy spending his days sitting on a huge bag of
09:15cash and cackling.
09:16He has been pretty generous with his money, having supported various charities over the
09:21years, including funding a boat to rescue refugees in the Mediterranean.
09:25One of Banksy's most famous escapades came in 2018, when he put a painting based on his
09:30famous Girl with Balloon to auction at the esteemed Sotheby's auction house in London.
09:35The painting eventually sold for a very respectable $1.4 million, but Banksy had an ace up his
09:40sleeve.
09:41The second the sale happened, the painting let out a beeping alarm and went through a
09:44shredder cleverly hidden within the frame.
09:47Unsurprisingly, the situation caused much confusion.
09:51Sotheby's head of European Contemporary Art, Alex Branczyk, said in a press conference,
09:55"...I'll be quite honest, we have not experienced this situation in the past, where a painting
09:59is spontaneously shredded upon, achieving a record for the artist."
10:03According to Banksy, the shredding didn't go quite as planned, because the shredder
10:07stopped roughly halfway through the process instead of tearing through the entire piece.
10:11As such, the artwork known as Love is in the Bin still exists.
10:15What's more, Esquire estimates that thanks to the shredder incident, it's now probably
10:19worth as much as $2.8 million.
10:22So now that we've gone over all that, it's time for the big question everyone has been
10:26asking for years.
10:27Just who is Banksy?
10:29Well that's a matter of intense speculation.
10:31There have been numerous suspects over the years, including Exit Through the Gift Shop
10:35star Terry Guetta, as well as artist Jamie Hewlett, and street artists Richard Pfeiffer
10:39and Paul Horner.
10:40And journalist Craig Williams thinks Banksy is actually a whole collective of artists
10:45using a single pseudonym.
10:47Williams believes that this collective is affiliated with the music group Massive Attack,
10:51as their tour dates have been known to coincide with new Banksy works in the area.
10:55And he's not alone.
10:56Many people think Banksy is actually Massive Attack member Robert 3D Del Naya.
11:01He's from Bristol and has collaborated with Banksy in the past, and was even a member
11:05of Banksy's street artist Dry Breads crew.
11:07All of this has led some people to think that Banksy is just an alter ego of Del Naya, especially
11:12since a DJ by the name of Goldie once accidentally referred to Banksy as Rob during an interview.
11:19Still, Del Naya and Banksy both insist they are in fact separate people.
11:23And there's one other suspect that Rob Clue points to, a man named Robin Gunningham.
11:27Many of Gunningham's old school friends from Bristol have expressed their belief that Gunningham
11:32is Banksy, while a group of criminologists at Queen Mary University in London announced
11:37in 2016 that their research indicated a strong geographic link between Gunningham and over
11:42140 Banksy works.
11:44It appears that neither Gunningham nor Banksy have ever publicly commented on this particular
11:49theory, but unlike Del Naya, it seems neither of them has debunked it either.
11:53For now, though, Banksy's true identity remains a mystery, just the way he wants it.