Graffti inserts itself like the blade of a knife between creation and destruction, between publicity and furtiveness, between word and image, cartoon, icon, and hieroglyph. Jonathan Lethem

Even if you’re not a fan of graffiti, you’ve likely seen the work of the world’s most famous street artist who goes by the pseudonym Banksy who, despite his popularity, has remained anonymous, his face and identity hidden from the public.

In 2010 when Time magazine selected Banksy for its list of the 100 most influential people in the world, the British artist supplied a picture of himself with a paper bag over his head.

His photo-derived stencil art was first seen in Bristol, deliberately placed on walls in poverty-stricken areas to point out social and political grievances. His first known and preserved wall mural, The Mild Mild West, appeared in 1999. It depicts a teddy bear about to throw a Molotov cocktail at three riot police officers, a reference to an incident between the police and Bristol youth earlier that year.

Banksy says,

Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing.
And even if you don’t come up with a picture to cure world poverty, you can make someone smile while they’re having a piss.

Magellan and I like his satirical and subversive art. But locating street art in cities is difficult. It’s often in rundown areas where it’s not entirely safe to be as a foreign tourist. When you find the location, the artwork has often disappeared under a layer of fresh paint or succumbed to the wrecking ball and replaced by a new building. Or the art has been cut out of the wall and sold! Now at Museu Banksy in Barcelona, with its simulacrum of streets of the world featuring more than 130 replicas of Banksy’s works from different regions, it’s easy to see his work—if you don’t mind foregoing the thrill of finding it on streets, walls and bridges throughout the world.

The first floor features his work in Britain reflecting the relationship between humans and animals and the way children are treated in society. On the lower floor, the museum shows his art that has addressed social issues in the USA, Israel and Palestine. The upper floor is dedicated to Banksy’s artwork in France and Italy.

“That he’s chosen to remain anonymous adds mystery to his work and makes it more alluring to some people,” says Magellan. “He’s not inserting himself into his art. Instead, he uses his art in a creative and powerful and consistent way to make political statements.”

Remaining anonymous is also a layer of protection for Banksy, as in many places his work is classified as criminal damage.  

In an interview (anonymous, of course) with Swindle magazine in 2006, Banksy said:

I came from a relatively small city in southern England. When I was about 10 years old, a kid called 3D was painting the streets hard. I think he’d been to New York and was the first to bring spray painting back to Bristol. I grew up seeing spray paint on the streets way before I ever saw it in a magazine or on a computer….Graffiti was the thing we all loved at school. We did it on the bus on the way home from school. Everyone was doing it.

In the 1990s, he signed Robin Banx to his art before changing his moniker to Banksy, a name that is less gangstery, packs more buzz, and is faster to write on the walls he illegally paints on. It’s also a name with more distance from his (possibly) true identity, which we’ll get to in a minute, even though Banksy has neither confirmed nor denied the accusation.

Bristol is where his first “inside” exhibition was held before Banksy moved to London, an easier place to retreat further into anonymity. He became an international star in 2005 when on the West Bank’s concrete wall built to stop suicide bombers, he painted a series of poignant images of children. A girl clutching balloons as she’s being lifted to the top of the wall, a boy with a ladder attempting an escape, children with a bucket and spade dreaming of a seaside beach. In Wall and Piece, Banksy writes,

The people who truly deface our neighbourhoods are the companies that scrawl giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff. They expect to be able to shout their message in your face from every available surface but you’re never allowed to answer back. Well, they started the fight and the wall is the weapon of choice to hit them back.

Ironically, although his stark stencilling and other provocative work is anti-establishment, critiquing war, consumer society, surveillance and injustice, through private sales, commissions and auctions via his company (Pest Control Office Ltd.), the art world has banked him with walls of cash. And fame. Exit Through the Gift Shop, his mockumentary on the creation and marketing of street art, was short-listed for an Oscar for Best Documentary in 2010.

You’ve probably heard the story of “Girl With Balloon” partly self-destructing in front of onlookers at a Sotheby’s auction after selling for $1.4 million. Banksy had secretly installed a shredder in the painting’s frame, a stunt to satirize the market’s speculative behaviour just in case it ever went up for auction. It didn’t stop the speculation. Three years later in 2021, Sotheby’s resold the newly named “Love Is In The Bin” for $25.4 million.

In The Smithsonian interview, Banksy said,

There’s a whole new audience out there, and it’s never been easier to sell one’s art. You don’t have to go to college, drag ’round a portfolio, mail off transparencies to snooty galleries or sleep with someone powerful, all you need now is a few ideas and a broadband connection. This is the first time the essentially bourgeois world of art has belonged to the people.

Even though his works are created without permission, painted under the cover of darkness and unclaimed as his until the paint has dried, how he has managed to create so much art over a quarter of a century and remain anonymous has always puzzled us.

So, who is Banksy?

Scientists at Queen Mary University in London who have tried to use forensic methods to find his identity say he’s most likely Robin Gunningham and in March this year, The Daily Mail reported that a man said to resemble ex-public schoolboy Robin Gunningham was photographed at the scene of the latest Banksy mural in Finsbury Park. The Guardian suggests he is Robert Banks. Others say he is Robin Banks, born in 1974 in Yate. Or Jamie Hewlett, the artist who founded the Gorillaz. Or Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja. Or Theiry Guetta, a street artist in Los Angeles who goes by the name Mr Brainwash. Or part of an artist collective…

Does it matter that we don’t know his true identity?

Apparently, most Banksy fans (like us) don’t really care who he is and aren’t interested in the Sherlock Holmes attempts to unmask him. His own thoughts?

If you want to say something and have people listen then you have to wear a mask.

Navigation

Banksy Explained.” We urge you to have some fun exploring this incredible site of all things Banksy.

Ellsworth-Jones, Will. “The Story Behind Banksy.” The Smithsonian. February 2013.

Lakin, Max. “What’s a Banksy Museum Without Banksy?” The New York Times. May 30, 2024

Lethem, Jonathan. “When Art Talks Back: Jonathan Lethem on Graffiti As Visual and Written Expression”. LitHub. August 26, 2024.

Marshall, Tom. “Banksy’s identity ‘revealed’ by scientists… using technique that could help expose terror cells.” The Standard.  March 4, 2016.

Museu Banksy Barcelona

Prideaux, Sophie. “Who is Banksy? The top theories and how he keeps his identity a secret”. The National. February 10, 2021.

Radnedge, Aldan. “Has Banksy finally let his mask slip? Fans claim man spotted at London mural bears ‘striking resemblance’ to ex-public schoolboy believed to be secretive street artist”. The Daily Mail.  March 25, 2024.