Project: Banksy

Banksy is a household name in London where he grew up and started painting. Although his art is located worldwide and many people can pick it out of a line up, they couldn’t pick out him. His true identity has remained covered since 1999 when he first started showing up on the art scenes radar. He deals primarily graffiti art and much of his work in unsolicited. Although many people do pay large amounts of many for his work he does much of it for free and charities.

He is not on Facebook or twitter. A lot of his publicity is word of mouth, news stories, invitation only art shows and YouTube “pranks”. He has a company called Pest Control that acts as a publicity coordinator and project authenticator that can maintain his image. This allows him to keep the mystique of anonymity and still cultivate his public persona. He has a website that is minimalist, but it gives an email that he seems to answer personally. His artistic preference keeps in line with his medium in that graffiti artist are essentially breaking the law, so staying hidden is important to his career.

His simple depictions of world issues have made his work lovable to the masses. Combined with the riddle of “who is Banksy” has made him popular with an elite crowd. Names like Brad Pitt and Christine Aguilera have paid a fine price for some of his work. The art is only a portion of what that price tag gets you, it is also buying a permanent piece in a collection of work that is mostly temporary. Most of Banksy’s collection is “illegal” or subject to other forms of vandalism because of its location. The temporary element of graffiti and the unusual popularity of an artist from this discipline make his more permanent works more desirable.

He has published a few of his own books and made a few movies to distribute some of his work. He conducts art shows that feel like exhibitions. Many of his pieces are surprises and are done for the sake of art rather than for money.  It seems like the distribution of his work is more about authentication of what is Banksy then about making money. He wants his work to be known but not be known himself.  

He has definitely changed the way we look at graffiti are and is shifting the art world. I think we still have a ways to go before he changes society, but we are looking at things differently. I think the New York stunt he pulled tells a lot about society. He is selling his art on the street cheap. This is art that goes for hundreds of thousands of dollars and it is not new work, some of the art on the stand was stuff he is well known for. But he only moves seven pieces to three customers, because they don’t know the name. It reminds me of another video featuring Joshua Bell playing a violin in the subway. Even though people are willing to pay good money to see him perform at a concert hall, less interested in stopping to listen in the subway station. Both cases can be argued that it was poor location, timing or audience but the results remain the same.

For the people that know of Banksy most seem to have a certain love for what he represents: art for the sake of art, a since of community and a healthy mistrust of the “man”. But will that love remain if he is unmasked?  Will the allure of the bad boy artist fade if we know the man? For now at least we can just sit back and enjoy the show and wonder: “What ‘s next?”