Banksy - Art's Faceless Firebrand, by Daniel Silk on Oct 13, 2008 13:12:39 GMT 1, news.scotsman.com/opinion/Profile-Banksy--Art39s-faceless.4583430.jp

Profile: Banksy - Art's faceless firebrand

Published Date: 12 October 2008
HE'S a public schoolboy who grew up in a leafy suburb; or he is a former butcher with a gold tooth and a penchant for stout. Or he doesn't exist at all. He is simply an alias for Steve Lazarides – owner of the gallery which sells his work – or comedian Simon Munnery, who sometimes speaks for him. Or he is a collective of graffiti artists who have banded together to perpetrate a giant hoax.
Ever since he began unleashing his distinctive murals on railway bridges and walls of his home town of Bristol in the early 1990s, Banksy has worked hard to protect his identity, setting up false trails to throw off reporters hell-bent on exposing hiADVERTISEMENT

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His anonymity – a pre-requisite for a graffiti artist sought by the police – is at the heart of a phenomenon that has taken the art world by storm. A Scarlet Pimpernel figure, Banksy lurks in the shadows. His paintings appear in the most unlikely places and are witty and subversive: two policemen kissing; a helicopter with a pink bow on top; an insect with air-to-air missiles beneath its wings.

Many works are anti-war, anti-capitalist or anti-establishment. Yet those who espouse those values are also targets. At a 2003 anti-war demo he distributed leaflets which said: "I don't believe in anything. I'm just here for the violence."

The street artist specialises in guerrilla happenings; he has hung his own art works – such as a green Mona Lisa, with paint dripping from her eyes – in museums in London, Paris and New York, without the security guards noticing; he once swapped 500 copies of Paris Hilton's debut CD in 48 different UK record stores, with remixes by Dangermouse, featuring titles such as 'Why Am I Famous?' and 'What Am I For?'

Even his exhibitions are puzzling: they appear unheralded in warehouses and feature unexpected exhibits, including, in Los Angeles, an elephant painted with a fleur-de-lis pattern.

It was days before anyone realised his latest project – A Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill on 7th Avenue, New York – was anything other than it purported to be. Several passers-by complained about the lack of space for leopard and monkey in the front window before it emerged the creatures – including a mother hen watching over baby chicken McNuggets – were animatronic and "a statement on our relationship with animals and ethics".

The exhibition is quintessentially Banksy: funny, quirky, right-on and riddled with contradictions. For a start, the work of a street artist is, by definition, ephemeral. Yet as the Banksy bandwagon has gained momentum he has created more lasting work in an attempt to secure his legacy. Also street artists are outsiders whose purpose is to challenge the hegemony. Yet Banksy has been embraced by many of those who are the butt of his scathing social comment. Feted by celebrities, including Brangelina and Damien Hirst, his works now change hands for tens of thousands of pounds.

Banksy gets the irony and exploits it, satirising the incongruity of his own celebrity status. When one of his paintings sold for £102,000 at Sotheby's last year, he posted an image, showing people bidding for a painting of the words: "I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit" on his website. The accusations of hypocrisy, however, he counters by insisting he gives away much of what he earns.

Although little is known for certain about Banksy, it is believed he was born in Bristol in 1974. By the time he was in his teens he was part of the city's flourishing graffiti scene – probably as one of the DryBreadZ Crew. He developed a distinctive style, which often featured anarchic rats or other animals. But it wasn't until he swapped freehand for quicker and less risky stencilling that Banksy came to wider public attention.

In the years that followed, his guerrilla art began appearing in Bristol, London and the US. Sometimes, it would consist of one sentence – such as the time he broke into London Zoo and wrote "We're Bored of Fish" in the penguin enclosure. On other occasions, it involved full-blown paintings.

His most iconic works include one of Pulp Fiction stars Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta wielding bananas instead of guns, and a naked man hanging from a window, which he painted on the wall of a sexual health clinic in his home town.

Soon Banksy was branching out into sculpture, creating among other things the infamous "murdered phone box" and a statue of justice dressed as a prostitute. He took his work abroad – controversially painting a mural of children digging a hole to a paradise beach on the Palestinian side of the West Bank wall, and placing an inflatable doll dressed as a Guantanamo Bay prisoner on a rollercoaster ride in California. He also started selling his work, through the Lazarides Gallery in Soho and at exhibitions in the UK and the US.

Opinion is fiercely divided on the quality and worth of Banksy's work. To some, he is a genius whose underground art works provide visual stimulation and valuable social commentary; to others he is a facile prankster and glorified vandal. "How would he feel if someone sprayed graffiti all over his house?" a spokesman for the Keep Britain Tidy campaign has said. In the same spirit, Tower Hamlets Council pledged to paint over any murals.

The question of Banksy's ability is, however, of little note compared to the question of his identity. So great is the public's curiosity about him that when he threw a pizza box into a bin at Los Angeles someone put it on eBay, suggesting the remnants might yield traces of DNA. Of course, Banksy feeds this frenzy. He doesn't attend his own exhibitions and for many years refused all interviews. In 2003, he – or someone claiming to be him – did meet Guardian writer Simon Hattenstone. The journalist described him as "a cross between Jimmy Nail and Mike Skinner of The Streets". Other clues – or red herrings – have also surfaced. A photograph purporting to be of Banksy in Jamaica was doing the rounds on the internet for a while.

And then, earlier this year, the Mail on Sunday announced Banksy was Robin Gunningham, an ex-public schoolboy from Bristol, with a flair for art, who disappeared after leaving home under something of a cloud. Enigmatic as ever, the artist refused to comment, remarking only that "anyone described as good at drawing doesn't sound like Banksy". Then someone else discovered a death notice for a Robin Gunningham from Bristol – though the ages didn't tally – and confusion reigned again.

Which suits Banksy, whose place in the pantheon of art depends on the mystery that surrounds him. The day we discover his identity the bubble will burst. How could the real person live up to the myth?

YOU'VE BEEN GOOGLED

Banksy's work has appeared on the cover of Blur's 2003 album Think Tank and in two films – Children Of Men and Shoot 'Em Up.

• In two days in 2007, six of his pieces were sold for £370,000 at Sotheby's. The current record was obtained two months later when Space Girl & Bird sold for £288,000.

• When Banksy printed spoof £10 notes in 2004, with Princess Diana's head in place of the Queen's and "Banksy of England", someone threw a handful into a crowd at the Notting Hill Carnival, prompting much confusion in local shops.

&149 Banksy: "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."