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In case you missed it, here is the link to the in-depth article by Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/global-art-banksy/
Some comments on different parts of the article:
It’s a quality journalistic investigation by Reuters, one of the leading news agencies. They have done a thorough job investigating one particular person who jumped into the public domain when the Daily Mail published his name back in 2007, based on a photo taken in Jamaica in 2004. His name was Robin Gunningham, and, according to Reuters, he has since changed it to David Jones. No doubt he’s a key player in the team. Great job, but the real merit of the article lies in the small stories they explain along the way: the Kyiv story, the Carlton Arms, the ex-girlfriend, the shredding at Sotheby’s, etc. These parts are stellar!
Anonymity: Banksy’s body of work is outstanding, and its artistic value doesn’t depend on anonymity. Like no other artist, Banksy has created an enormous contemporary narrative in which his anonymity is just one small element. Banksy’s artistic risk-taking in creating this narrative is unprecedented in today’s art world. If Banksy decides to distance himself from the celebrity cult, it’s his decision, and he surely has many reasons to do so. Is he obliged to transparency and scrutiny just for being one of the most prominent artists of our time? Let’s leave that question for another forum.
Banksy business: As we explained on this blog before, if we look beyond the street art, Banksy is not very different from any other big artist today. He creates artwork, which he sells to his collector base, his primary market. That’s how he makes money, and nothing wrong with that. A subversive artist also needs to eat. The buying and selling of Banksy studio artwork at auction houses and between collectors and art dealers has nothing to do with Banksy’s finances; the prices of these pieces are subject to market forces in the secondary market. He only gains indirectly; when prices go up at the auctions, the artist can charge more for new artwork when he sells to his collector base. That’s how it works for many prominent living artists, including Banksy. What differentiates Banksy from other big-revenue artists: Banksy gives away a lot to various charity projects. Credit to Reuters for including the many charities.
One person or a team: Reuters focus on Banksy as a one-man show with some helpers. Robin / David is definitely a part of it, but how do we know that he is the top dog? Banksy’s peers – for example, Damien Hirst or Jeff Koons- are cultural enterprises with up to 40 people on payroll. Craftsmen, logistics, marketing, accounting, PR, etc. How do we know that Banksy is one person and not a team? And how do we know that Robin / David is one of the top dogs? Most likely, he is, but we don’t know the pecking order. And, do we really want to know?
Some of the guys who participated in doing Banksy street art are more or less known: Ben Eine, James Ame, Robert del Naja (aka 3D), John Tsombikos (aka Borf), et al. Additionally, we also know some of the people who participated in doing the studio work. The scope of Banksy’s body of work is enormous to say the least – street art, oil on canvas, sculptures, installations, organising art shows, books, film production, and even a hotel. In today’s art world of one-trick ponies, it’s difficult to imagine Banksy’s creative core as a one-man show; it could also be a committee. The only thing we know for sure is that we don’t know,
The conclusion is that Reuters has only revealed a small part of the story, and there is so much more to it. And, do we really want to know?
There are some minor inaccuracies in the article. Two examples:
1) Reuter writes: “David Jones also is the given name of David Bowie, whose Ziggy Stardust alter ego inspired a Banksy portrait of Queen Elizabeth.”
The Queen Elizabeth piece from 2012, which Reuters refers to, with makeup in the style of Bowie’s Aladdin Sane, is not by Banksy – it was done by Inc Well.
2) The following picture from the Reuters article is from the Turf War exhibition in 2003. Reuters refers to the paintings as “Crude Oils” in the text below the photo: “Another common feature of Banksy’s work is the use of détournement, the practice of altering and transforming an existing piece of art. In his “Crude Oils” series, Banksy added stenciled outlines of contrasting scenes on top of traditional landscapes”.
Two years after Turf War, Banksy held the Crude Oil exhibition in London, where they exhibited versions of masterpieces painted from scratch by the Banksy team. After the Crude Oil exhibition in 2005, the Crude Oil concept applies only to those 2005 paintings and does not extend to doctored charity-shop paintings – the so-called “corrupted oils”.
Fake news:
As a result of the Reuters article, many low-quality media outlets are circulating the following photos (Reuters are not to blame) as recent photos of Banksy:
The person is not Robin / David. The guy in the photo is a proud 67-year-old living in northern London, the father of the owner of the building in Finsbury Park, where Banksy painted a pruned tree in March 2024. His photo was taken while he was putting up protection on the recently painted street art.
Banksy unofficial 