Banksy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Banksy

The cover of Banksy's 2005 compilation,
Wall and Piece.
Birth name
(unknown)
Born
Unknown
Bristol
Field
Graffiti
Street art
Bristol underground scene
Sculpture
Satire
Social commentary
Awards
Toronto Film Critics Association Awards Best First
Feature 2010
Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary
Feature
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Best
Documentary Film 2010
Banksy is a pseudonymous United Kingdom-based graffiti artist, political activist, film director,
and painter.
His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed 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.
[1]

Banksy's work was made up of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations
between artists and musicians.
[2]
According to author and graphic designer Tristan Manco and
the book Home Sweet Home, Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England.
[3]
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."
[4]
Observers have noted that his style is similar
to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris.
[5][6]
Banksy says that he was
inspired by "3D", a graffiti artist who later became a founding member of Massive Attack.
[7]

Known for his contempt for the government in labelling graffiti as vandalism, Banksy displays his
art on publicly visible surfaces such as walls, even going as far as to build physical prop pieces.
Banksy does not sell photographs or reproductions of his street graffiti, but 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.
[8]
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.
[9]
The
film was released in the UK on 5 March 2010.
[10]
In January 2011, he was nominated for
theAcademy Award for Best Documentary for the film.
Contents
[hide]
1 Career
o 1.1 Early career (19922001)
o 1.2 Exhibitions (20022003)
o 1.3 10 notes to Barely Legal (20042006)
o 1.4 The Banksy effect (20062007)
o 1.5 2008
o 1.6 The Cans Festival
o 1.7 2009
o 1.8 Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
o 1.9 2011
o 1.10 2012
o 1.11 2013
o 1.12 Better Out Than In (2013)
2 Notable artworks
3 Technique
4 Political and social themes
5 Critics
6 Bibliography
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
Career
Early career (19922001)
Banksy began as a freehand graffiti artist in 19901994
[11]
as one of Bristol's DryBreadZ Crew
(DBZ), with Kato and Tes.
[12]
He was inspired by local artists and his work was part of the
larger Bristol underground scene with Nick Walker, Inkie and 3D.
[13][14]
During this time he met
Bristol photographer Steve Lazarides, who began selling Banksy's work, later becoming his
agent.
[15]
From the start Banksy used stencils as elements of his freehand pieces, too.
[11]
By
2000 he had turned to the art of stencilling after realising how much less time it took to complete
a work. He claims he changed to stencilling while he was hiding from the police under a rubbish
lorry, when he noticed the stencilled serial number
[16]
and by employing this technique, he soon
became more widely noticed for his art around Bristol and London.
[16]
He played football with
theEaston Cowboys and Cowgirls in the 1990s and toured with the club to Mexico in
2001.
[17]
Banksy's first known large wall mural was "The Mild Mild West" painted in 1997 to cover
advertising of a former solicitors' office on Stokes Croft Avenue, Bristol. It depicts
a teddybear lobbing a Molotov cocktail at three riot police.
[18]



Stencil on the waterline of The Thekla, an entertainment boat in centralBristol (wider view). The image of Death
is based on a nineteenth-century etching illustrating the pestilence ofThe Great Stink.
[19]

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,
apes, policemen, soldiers, children, and the elderly.
In July 2011 one of Banksy's early works, Gorilla in a Pink Mask, which had been a prominent
landmark on the exterior wall of a former social club in Eastville for over ten years, was
unwittingly painted over after the premises became a Muslim cultural centre.
[20][21]

Exhibitions (20022003)
On 19 June 2002, Banksy's first Los Angeles exhibition debuted at 33
1

3
Gallery, a tiny Silver
Lake venue owned by Frank Sosa. The exhibition, entitled Existencilism, was curated by
33
1

3
Gallery, Malathion LA's Chris Vargas, Funk Lazy Promotions' Grace Jehan, and B+.
[22]

In 2003, at 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.
[23]
He later moved on to producing subverted paintings;
[citation needed]
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.
[24]



Banksy art in Brick Lane, 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 (20042006)
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 Bonhamsauction house in London for 24,000.


A stencil of Charles Manson in a prison suit, hitchhiking to anywhere,Archway, London
In August 2005, Banksy, on a trip to the Palestinian territories, created nine images on the Israeli
West Bank wall.
[25]

Banksy held an exhibition called Barely Legal, billed as a "three-day vandalised warehouse
extravaganza" in Los Angeles, on the weekend of 16 September 2006. The exhibition featured a
live "elephant in a room," painted in a pink and gold floral wallpaper pattern, which, according to
leaflets handed out at the exhibition, was intended to draw attention to the issue of world poverty.
Although the Animal Services Department had issued a permit for the elephant, after complaints
from animal rights activists, the elephant appeared unpainted on the final day. Its owners
rejected claims of mistreatment and said that the elephant had done "many, many movies. She's
used to makeup."
[26]
Banksy also made artwork displaying Queen Victoria as a lesbian and
satirical pieces that incorporated art made by Andy Warhol and Leonardo da Vinci.
[27]

The Banksy effect (20062007)
"There are crimes that become innocent and even glorious through their splendour, number and excess."
Banksy
[28]

After Christina Aguilera bought an original of Queen Victoria as a lesbian and two prints for
25,000,
[29]
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.
[30]
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.
[31]



Naked Man image by Banksy, on the wall of a sexual health clinic
[32]
in Park Street, Bristol. Following popular
support, the City Council has decided it will be allowed to remain (wider view).
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.
[33]
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.
[34]
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."
[35]
In February 2007, the owners of a house with a Banksy
mural on the side in Bristol decided to sell the house through Red Propeller art gallery after offers
fell through because the prospective buyers wanted to remove the mural. It is listed as a mural
that comes with a house attached.
[36]
In 2008, Nathan Wellard and Maev Neal, a couple from
Norfolk, UK, made headlines in Britain when they decided to sell their mobile home that contains
a 30-foot mural, entitled Fragile Silence, done by Banksy a decade prior to his rise to fame.
According to Nathan Wellard, Banksy had asked the couple if he could use the side of their home
as a "large canvas," to which they agreed. In return for the "canvas", the Bristol stencil artist gave
them two free tickets to the Glastonbury Music Festival [1]. The mobile home purchased by the
couple 11 years ago for 1,000 GBP, is now being sold for 500,000 GBP.
[37]

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."
[38]
Banksy tagged the
same site again and, initially, the actors were portrayed as holding real guns instead of bananas,
but they were adorned with banana costumes. Some time later, Banksy made a tribute artwork
over this second Pulp Fiction work. 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.
[39]
Banksy depicted an angel wearing a bullet-proof vest holding a skull
(pictured below left). 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.
[40]



Ozone's Angel
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.
[41]
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.
[42][43]
In October 2007, most of his works offered for sale at Bonhams auction house
in London sold for more than twice their reserve price.
[44]



Banksy's "Stonehenge" from portable toilets at the Glastonbury Festival, June 2007
Banksy has published a "manifesto" on his website.
[45]
The text of the manifesto is credited as
the diary entry of one Lieutenant ColonelMervin Willett Gonin, DSO, which is exhibited in
the Imperial War Museum. It describes how a shipment of lipstick to the Bergen-
Belsenconcentration 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 No.03 that describes Peter Chappell's graffiti quest of the 1970s
that worked to free George Davis of his imprisonment.
[45]
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.),"
[46]
claims that the
exhibition at Vanina Holasek Gallery in New York City (his first major exhibition in that city) is
unauthorised. The exhibition featured 62 of his paintings and prints.
[47]

2008


Banksy "Swinger" in New Orleans
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
thisSociety!" 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.
[48]



Work on building in the Lower 9th Ward 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.
[49]
A stencil painting attributed to Banksy appeared at a
vacant petrol station in the Ensley neighbourhood of Birmingham, Alabama on 29 August
as Hurricane Gustavapproached 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.
[50]
His first official exhibition in New York City, 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.
[51]



One nation under CCTV, 2008 mural removed (painted over) in 2009.
[52]

The Westminster City Council stated in October 2008 that the work "One Nation Under CCTV,"
painted in April 2008 would be painted over as it was graffiti. The council said it would 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 Timesnewspaper: "If we condone this then we might as well say that any kid
with a spray can is producing art."
[52]
The work was painted over in April 2009. In December 2008,
The Little Diver, a Banksy image of a diver in a duffle coat in Melbourne Australia was destroyed.
The image had been protected by a sheet of clear perspex; however, silver paint was poured
behind the protective sheet and later tagged with the words "Banksy woz ere." The image was
almost completely obliterated.
[53]

The Cans Festival
Over the weekend 35 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.
[54]
Artists includedBlek le Rat, Broken Crow,
C215, Cartrain, Dolk, Dotmasters, J.Glover, Ben Eine, Eelus, Hero, Pure evil, Jef Arosol, Mr
Brainwash, Tom Civil Roadsworth and Sten & Lex.
[citation needed]

Banksy invited thirty-nine artists from around the world, including Sten Lex, Bsas
Stencil, Prism, Roadsworth, Blek, C215, Dotmasters, Hero, Sadhu, Lucamaleonte, Faile, Logan
Hicks, Btoy, Vhils, Vexta and John Grider exhibited their works in an abandoned tunnel near
Leake Street in South East London.
[55]

2009


Queues for the Banksy vs Bristol Museum Show in Bristol, June 2009


The location of the damaged 1985 graffiti by Robbo in Camden, London allegedly painted over by Banksy and
subsequently painted over by Robbo in retaliation.
In May 2009, Banksy parted company with agent Steve Lazarides and announced that Pest
Control,
[56]
the handling service who act on his behalf, would be the only point of sale for new
works. On 13 June 2009, the Banksy vs Bristol Museum 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.
[57][58]
Reaction to the show was positive, with
over 8,500 visitors to the show on the first weekend.
[59]
Over the course of the twelve weeks, the
exhibition was visited over 300,000 times.
[60]
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 it
to be painted, was reported to have been in tears when she saw it was being painted over.
[61]
In
December 2009, Banksy marked the end of the 2009 United Nations Climate Change
Conference by painting four murals on global warming. One included the phrase, "I don't believe
in global warming;" the words were submerged in water.
[62]
A feud and graffiti war between
Banksy and King Robbo broke out when Banksy allegedly painted over one of Robbo's tags. The
feud has led to many of Banksy's works being altered by graffiti writers.
[63]

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 artworks around Park City and
Salt Lake City to tie in with the screening.
[64]
In February, The Whitehouse public house
in Liverpool, England, was sold for 114,000 at auction. The side of the building has an image of
a giant rat by Banksy.
[65]
In March 2010, the work "Forgive us our Trespassing" was displayed in
the London 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 byArt 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.[This report was false as the image was destroyed by plumbers in May 2012 and
received a decent amount of local press] 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.
[66]
In
April 2010, to coincide with the premiere of Exit Through the Gift Shop in San Francisco, five of
his works appeared in various parts of the city.
[67]
Banksy reportedly paid a San Francisco
Chinatown building owner $50 for the use of their wall for one of his stencils.
[68]
In early May
2010, seven new Banksy works of art appeared in Toronto, Ontario, Canada,
[69]
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 in Detroit and Warren.
[70]
Shortly after, his work depicting 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.
[71]
There was also an attempted removal of one
of the Warren works known as "Diamond Girl."
[72]

In late January 2011, Exit Through the Gift Shop was nominated for a 2010 Oscar for Best
Documentary Feature.
[73]
Banksy released a statement about the nomination, where he said,
"This is a big surprise I don't agree with the concept of award ceremonies, but I'm prepared to
make an exception for the ones I'm nominated for. The last time there was a naked man covered
in gold paint in my house, it was me."
[74]
Leading up to the Oscars, Banksy blanketed Los
Angeles with street art. Many people speculated if Banksy would show up at the Oscars in
disguise and make a surprise appearance if he won the Oscar. Exit Through the Gift Shop did
not win the award, which went to Inside Job. In early March 2011, Banksy responded to the
Oscars with an artwork in Weston, UK, of a little girl holding the Oscar and pouting. Many people
think that it is in reference to 15-month-old Lara, who dropped and damaged her father's (The
King's Speech co-producer Simon Egan) Oscar statue.
[75]
Exit Through the Gift Shop was
broadcast on British public television stationChannel 4 on 13 August 2011.
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.
[76]
His name appears several times throughout the episode's opening sequence, spray-
painted on assorted walls and signs. Fox sanitised parts of the opening "for taste" and to make it
less grim. In January 2011, Banksy published the original storyboard on its website.
[77]
According
to Banksy, the storyboard "led to delays, disputes over broadcast standards and a threatened
walk out by the animation department." Executive director Al Jean jokingly said, "This is what you
get when you outsource."
[76]

The work 'Forgive us our Trespassing' by Banksy was displayed in March 2010 at London Bridge
in conjunction with Art Below an arts company that put on art shows on the London Underground.
The work was censored by the Transport for London (TfL), forbidding display of the work with its
halo, because of the prevalence of graffiti in the underground.
[78]
It was displayed without the
halo over the boy's head, but after a few days the halo was repainted by a graffitist, so the TfL
disposed of the poster. This decline went through the press and several articles were published
remarking on the progress of the poster.
[78][79]

2011
In May 2011 Banksy released a lithographic print which showed a smoking petrol
bomb contained in a 'Tesco Value' bottle. This followed a long running campaign by locals
against the opening of a Tesco Express supermarket in Banksy's home city of Bristol. Violent
clashes had taken place between police and demonstrators in the Stokes Croft area. Banksy
produced the poster ostensibly to raise money for local groups in the Stokes Croft area and to
raise money for the legal defence of those arrested during the riots. The posters were sold
exclusively at the Bristol Anarchists Bookfair in Stokes Croft for 5 each.
In December, he unveiled "Cardinal Sin" at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. The bust, which
replaces a priest's face with a "pixelated" effect, was a statement on the child abuse scandal in
the Catholic Church.
[80]

2012
In May his Parachuting Rat, painted in Melbourne in the late 1990s, was accidentally destroyed
by plumbers installing new pipes.
[81]

In July, prior to the 2012 Olympic Games Banksy posted photographs of paintings with an
Olympic theme on his website but did not disclose their location.
[82][83]

2013
On 18 February, BBC News reported that a recent Banksy mural, known as the Slave Labour
mural portraying a young child sewing Union Flag bunting (created around the time of
the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II) had been removed from the side of a Poundland store in
Wood Green, north London, and soon appeared for sale in Fine Art Auctions Miami's catalogue
(a US auction site based in Florida). News of this has reportedly caused "lots of anger" in the
local community and is considered by some to be a theft. Fine Art Auctions Miami has rejected
claims of theft, saying it had signed a contract with a "well-known collector" and that "everything
was above board"; despite this, the local Councillor for Wood Green is campaigning for the
work's return.
[84]

On the scheduled day of the auction, Fine Art Auctions Miami announced that it had withdrawn
the work of art from the sale.
[85]

On 11 May, BBC News reports that the same Banksy mural is up for auction again in Covent
Garden by the Sincura Group. The auction is scheduled to take place in June. It is expected to
fetch up to 450,000.
[86]

On 24 September, after over a year since his previous piece, a new Banksy mural went up on his
website along with the subtitle 'Better Out Than In'.
Better Out Than In (2013)
Main article: Better Out Than In
On 1 October Banksy began a one-month "show on the streets of New York [City]", for which he
opened a separate website
[87]
and granted an interview to The Village Voice via his publicist.
[88]

A pop-up boutique of about 25 spray-art canvases on Fifth Avenue near Central Park Saturday
on 12 October. Tourists were able to buy Banksy art for just $60 each. In a note posted to his
website, the artist wrote: "Please note this was a one-off. The stall will not be there again." The
BBC estimated that the street-stall art pieces could be worth as much as $31,000. The booth was
manned by an unknown elderly gent who went about four hours before making a sale, yawning
and eating lunch as people strolled by without a second glance at the work. Banksy chronicled
the surprise sale in a video posted to his website noting, "Yesterday I set up a stall in the park
selling 100% authentic original signed Banksy canvases. For $60 each."
[89][90][91]

The press reported that New York mayor Michael Bloomberg called Banksy a vandal whose work
is not his definition of art, and that the NYPD's vandal squad was on the hunt for the Banksy over
his various graffiti art and installations.
[92][93][94]
One creation was a fiberglass sculpture of
a Ronald McDonald and a real person, barefoot and in ragged cloths, shining the oversized
shoes of Ronald McDonald. The sculpture was unveiled in Queens but moved outside a different
McDonald's around the city every day.
[95][96][97]
Other works included a YouTube video showing
what appears to be footage of jihadist militants shooting down an animated Dumbo the Elephant;
travelling installations that toured the city including a slaughterhouse delivery truck full of stuffed
animals and a waterfall; and a modified painting donated to a charity shop which was later sold in
an online auction for $615,000.
[98][99]
Banksy also posted a mock-up of a New York Times op-
ed attacking the design of the One World Trade Center after The New York Times rejected his
submission.
[100][101]
The residency in New York concluded on 31 October 2013,
[98][102]
many of the
pieces however were vandalized, removed or stolen.
[103][104]

Notable artworks
"When you go to an art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires."
Banksy
[105]



Near Bethlehem 2005
Regarding personal fame, Banksy has stated that "We don't need any more heroes; we just need
someone to take out the recycling."
[106]
However, in addition to his artwork, Banksy has claimed
responsibility for a number of high profile artworks, including the following:
At London Zoo, he climbed into the penguin enclosure and painted "We're bored of fish" in 7-
foot-high (2.1 m) letters.
[107]

At Bristol Zoo, he left the message "I want out. This place is too cold. Keeper smells. Boring,
boring, boring." in the elephant enclosure.
[108]

In March 2005, he placed subverted artworks in the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, and American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan as well as
the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn.
[109]

In May 2005 Banksy's version of a primitive cave painting depicting a human figure hunting
wildlife while pushing a shopping trolley was hung in gallery 49 of the British Museum,
London.
[110]

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.
[25][111][112][113]

In October 2005, Banksy designed 6 station ID's for Nickelodeon.
[114]

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."
[115]

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 "a heated
debate",
[116]
with the Bristol City Council leaving it up to the public to decide whether it should
stay or go.
[117]
After an internet discussion in which 97% of the 500 people surveyed
supported the stencil, the city council decided it would be left on the building.
[116]
The mural
was later defaced with blue paint.
[118]

In August/September 2006, Banksy placed 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 Hilton digitally altered to appear topless. Other pictures
feature her with her chihuahua Tinkerbell'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."
[119][120][121]

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.
[122][123]

He makes stickers (the Neighbourhood Watch subvert) and was responsible for the cover art
of Blur's 2003 album Think Tank.
In September 2007, Banksy covered a wall in Portobello Road with a French artist painting
graffiti of Banksy's name.
[124]

In July 2012, in the run up to the London 2012 Olympic games he created several pieces
based upon this event. One included an image of an athlete throwing a missile instead of
Javelin, evidently taking a poke at the Surface to Air missile sites positioned in the Stratford
area to defend the games.
[125][126]

Technique


ATM attacking a girl, Rosebery Avenue, London, January 2008
Asked about his technique, Banksy said:
I use whatever it takes. Sometimes that just means drawing a moustache on a girl's face on
some billboard, sometimes that means sweating for days over an intricate drawing. Efficiency is
the key.
[127]

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 one sitting. So he devised a series of
intricate stencils to minimise time and overlapping of the colour.
There is dispute in the street art world over the legitimacy of stencils, with many artists criticising
their use as "cheating."
[128]

Political and social themes


Shop Until You Drop, Mayfair, London
"We can't do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime we should
all go shopping to console ourselves."
Banksy, Wall and Piece
[129]

Banksy once characterised graffiti as a form of underclass "revenge", or guerilla warfare that
allows an individual to snatch away power, territory and glory from a bigger and better equipped
enemy.
[28]
Banksy sees a social class component to this struggle, remarking "If you don't own a
train company then you go and paint on one instead."
[28]
Banksy's work has also shown a desire
to mock centralised power, hoping that his work will show the public that although power does
exist and works against you, that power is not terribly efficient and it can and should be
deceived.
[28]

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.
[130]
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."
[131]
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."
[132]

Critics
Peter Gibson, a spokesman for Keep Britain Tidy, asserts that Banksy's work is simple
vandalism,
[133]
and Diane Shakespeare, an official for the same organisation, was quoted as
saying: "We are concerned that Banksy's street art glorifies what is essentially vandalism."
[35]
In
his column for The Guardian, satirist Charlie Brooker wrote of Banksy "his work looks
dazzlingly clever to idiots."
[134]

He has also been long criticised for copying the work of Blek le Rat, creator of the life-sized
stencil technique in early 1980s Paris. Blek's own response to such criticism has been varied. He
has expressed pleasure at being an inspiration to "an artist that good,"
[6]
and in early 2011 was
seen adding to a mural initiated by Banksy in San Francisco.
[135]

However, Blek expressed a different perspective later that same year, in the documentary Graffiti
Wars, stating:
When I see Banksy making a man with a child or Banksy making rats, of course I see
immediately where he takes the idea. I do feel angry. When you're an artist you use your own
techniques. It's difficult to find a technique and style in art so when you have a style and you see
someone else is taking it and reproducing it, you don't like that. I'm not sure about his integrity.
Maybe he has to show his face now and show what kind of guy he is."
[136]

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 978-0-9541704-0-0
Banksy, Existencilism (2002) ISBN 978-0-9541704-1-7
Banksy, Cut It Out (2004) ISBN 978-0-9544960-0-5
Banksy, Wall and Piece (2005) ISBN 978-1-84413-786-2
Banksy, Pictures of Walls (2005) ISBN 978-0-9551946-0-3
Banksy, You Are an Acceptable Level of Threat (2012) ISBN 978-1908211088
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. The book was a best seller in the arts
category for several years after its release.
[137]

Books about his work, authored by others:
Ulrich Blanch, Something to s(pr)ay: Der Street Artivist Banksy. Eine
kunstwissenschaftliche Untersuchung (2010), ISBN 978-3-8288-2283-2
Martin Bull, Banksy Locations and Tours: A Collection of Graffiti Locations and Photographs
in London (2006 with new editions in 2007, 2008 and 2010), ISBN 978-0-9554712-4-7.
Will Elsworth-Jones, Banksy, the Man behind the Wall (2012), ISBN 978-1-8451369-9-4.
Paul Gough (ed), Banksy, the Bristol Legacy (2012), ISBN 978-1-906593-96-4.
Steve Wright, Banksy's Bristol: Home Sweet Home, Tangent Books (2007), ISBN 978-1-
906477-00-4
Reisser, Mirko; Peters, Gerrit; Zahlmann, Heiko, eds. (2002). Urban Discipline 2002: Graffiti-
Art. Urban Discipline: Graffiti-Art (in german) 3 (1st ed.). Hamburg (Germany): getting-
up. ISBN 3-00-009421-0.
See also