All images on this page are sourced from earlier editions of http://www.banksy.co.uk

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Banksy drawings

Some of the most interesting pieces that have appeared on Banksy’s website through the years are the drawings:

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King Robbo vs Banksy

The feud started in 2009 when Banksy painted over one of King Robbo’s tags in Camden. The tag was sprayed in 1985 underneath the British Transport Police quarters. The feud continued until King Robbo had a serious accident in 2011, leaving him in a vegetative state until he died in 2014. His real name was John Robertson. The following sequence is a tribute to Robbo, which appeared on Banksy’s website in 2014:

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Banksy’s op-ed in New York Times

On day 26 of Better Out Than In, Banksy had written an op-ed for New York Times, which never got published:

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Some rare Banksy street art:

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Exit Through the Gift Shop

This is how ETTGS appeared on http://www.banksy.co.uk:

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Banksy did an interview on Exit Through the Gift Shop with independent filmmaker AJ Schnack.

All These Wonderful Things, by AJ Schnack . As seen on http://www.banksy.co.uk 10 January 2011

December 21, 2010

Banksy (Yes, Banksy) on Thierry, EXIT Skepticism & Documentary Filmmaking as Punk

Note – The second in a series of interviews with the directors of some of our favorite nonfiction features of 2010…

Whenever the subject of EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP has come up in casual or not-so-casual conversation over the past year, a vigorous discussion has followed.  I’ve seen master filmmakers, newcomers, film critics and non-pros all engage in excited, lengthy dissections of the film – sometimes about what’s real, what they suspect is not – often about the film’s profound take on art and commerce.  In the end, no matter what point of view the individual holds, the conclusion seems to always be that it’s a major work in the nonfiction canon.

One would be forgiven for not expecting all this when Sundance announced EXIT as a late addition to the 2010 festival.  The debut film by Banksy – the anonymous British artist who gained notoriety and fame for his often-politically charged work that would turn up in some very unusual places (inside museum galleries, on the West Bank wall that separates Israelis and Palestinians) – EXIT would leave the festival spurring numerous distribution offers and go out on its own, working with sales agent John Sloss and distributor Richard Abramowitz to bring the film to theatres in the spring.  And after a somewhat surprising (relief was more like it) inclusion on the Academy’s Documentary Feature shortlist, the film finds itself smack in the middle of Best-of-the-Year conversations.  It’s nominated for the Documentary prize at the Film Independent Spirit Awards and it’s up for 6 awards at next months Cinema Eye Honors, including Outstanding Feature and Outstanding Debut, not to mention the numerous film critics prizes its been garnering (yesterday, it was announced as the Best Documentary and Best First Feature on indieWIRE’s annual critics poll).

Over the past month, we’ve had the opportunity to spend some time with the team behind EXIT – producer Jaimie D’Cruz and editor Chris King – including hosting the duo at a screening here in Los Angeles at Cinefamily earlier this month.  In their presence, I witnessed numerous others trying to find out what Banksy thinks of this or that. 

I had my own questions and Banksy and team were kind enough to get me his answers (via email, of course)…

All these wonderful things: One thing I’ve heard repeatedly from members of your team was that, early on, you were alone in your conviction that Thierry could and should be the narrative focus of the film – long before his show in LA that concludes the movie.  What drew you to Thierry as a film character and, aside from the fact that he had a lot of archival material about street art at his fingertips, why did you think that he could sustain the film’s narrative arc?
 
Banksy: Thierry’s entertainment potential wasn’t difficult to spot – he actually walks into doors and falls down stairs. It was like hanging out with Groucho Marx but with funnier facial hair. Thierry arrived at a point when my world was becoming infested with hipsters and heavy irony, so his exuberant man-child innocence was fun to be around. Maybe I convinced myself Thierry was a good subject just because I liked him. I’d be lying if I told you the first time I met him I thought ‘this man’s life will deliver a good narrative arc’.
 
From the outset there are problems with any movie about graffiti because all the good artists refuse to show their face on camera. I needed the film to be fronted by a personality the audience could engage with. The producer Robert Evans said that ‘vulnerability’ is the most important quality in a movie star and that’s a hard thing to portray if all your interviewees have masks over their faces.
 
ATWT: It’s clear in the film that you rely on a team of people to create your artwork.  What, if anything, was different about the filmmaking process, and the work you did with that team – Jaimie and Chris and others?  And how did you know when you’d found the right collaborators?
 
B: I paint my own pictures but I get a lot of help building stuff and installing it. I have a great little team, but I tell you what – they all hate this fucking film. They don’t care if its effective, they feel very strongly that Mr Brainwash is undeserving of all the attention. Most street artists feel the same. This film has made me extremely unpopular in my community.

ATWT: When I saw the film, it didn’t strike me as anything but a true documentary.  Perhaps because I live in Los Angeles and I’ve seen MBW’s art in my neighborhood and remember his big show, but also because it’s clear that the scene where Thierry meets Shepard Fairey is at least nine years old (there’s now a big movie theater complex across the street that doesn’t exist in the footage that Thierry shot).  Yet, particularly when the film was opening last spring, there seemed to be this undercurrent of suspicion, perhaps because of the press’ desire to paint you as a prankster, that the film was trying to pull one over on us.  How much of that conversation have you been paying attention to and what was your take on it?

B: Obviously the story is bizarre, that’s why I made a film about it, but I’m still shocked by the level of skepticism. I guess I have to accept that people think I’m full of shit. But I’m not clever enough to have invented Mr. Brainwash, even the most casual on-line research confirms that.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t mind if people believe me or not, but the film’s power comes from the fact it’s all 100% true. This is from the frontline, this is watching an art form self-combust in front of you. Told by the people involved. In real time. This is a very real film about what it means to ‘keep it real’.

Besides, if the movie was a carefully scripted prank you can be sure I would’ve given myself some better lines. I would’ve meticulously planned my spontaneous off-the-cuff remarks. I love that famous Jack Benny come-back to a heckler – “You wouldn’t say that if my writers were here.” But I’ve always wondered – did his writers tell him to say that?

ATWT: One of the more electrifying and sometimes terrifying moments for any filmmaker is seeing their work with an audience for the first time. Have you seen EXIT with an audience and, if so, what was that experience like?

B: Unfortunately I haven’t seen it with an audience. The nearest I got was going to the cinema to see ‘Precious’. They played my trailer beforehand and someone two rows in front shouted  ‘OH MY GOD, BANKSY IS SUCH A SELL-OUT’ and I shrank into my seat.

ATWT: What do you think that you discovered about the form of documentary while making this movie and is there any correlation to your other artistic work?  Were you a fan of documentary prior to making the film and, if so, what were some of your favorite films?  Did any of them influence what you did on EXIT?

B: I’m from a generation for whom documentary isn’t a dirty word. It doesn’t have to mean endless shots of penguins set to classical music. Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock seemed completely punk to me. And the most punk thing of all was they brought their story undiluted to the multiplex.

Documentaries have an important role in recording culture that’s unlikely to make it into the history books. DOGTOWN AND Z-BOYS was the Bill of Rights for skate culture. Having said that, my film was never going to be an authoritative history of street art. Or even an authoritative history of the selling-out of street art. We realized halfway through the edit that the ending needed to be as unresolved as possible. I’ve learnt from experience that a painting isn’t finished when you put down your brush – that’s when it starts. The public reaction is what supplies meaning and value. Art comes alive in the arguments you have about it. If we’ve done our job properly with EXIT, then the best part of the entire movie is the conversation in the car park afterwards.

ATWT: Do you think that there are specific challenges for you and your team due to your anonymity?  Did that ever make the process easier or more difficult in a way that other documentary filmmakers may not suspect?

B: Deciding who to work with is a balancing act between people’s abilities, and their ability to keep their mouth shut. We’ve had some pretty sensitive footage of different artists go through our hands. Thankfully it’s all been burnt now.

My inability to go around schmoozing people might have hurt the film on one level, but on another level I’m a volatile drunk and it’s probably been an enormous blessing.  

ATWT: The Toronto Film Critics recently named EXIT as the Best First Feature of 2010, which begs the question of whether there will be another film in the future – and, particularly for my own curiosity, would it be another documentary?  If so, would you seek out a subject or would you wait for something to cross your path that ignited your desire to create a film about it?

B: The art I make is similar to film – my paintings are essentially freeze frames from movies that are playing in my head. I think its pretty clear that film is the pre-eminent art form of our age. If Michaelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci were alive today they’d be making Avatar, not painting a chapel. Film is incredibly democratic and accessible, it’s probably the best option if you actually want to change the world, not just re-decorate it.

Posted by AJ Schnack on December 21, 2010

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Banksy interview published in the Financial Times. 15 December 2017

Banksy goes to Bethlehem

The famously anonymous artist is making his presence felt in the West Bank city. He tells Jan Dalley what he believes his art might achieve

Jan Dalley DECEMBER 15 2017

Bethlehem, December 2017. Rockets are screaming up into the night sky, exploding with ear-splitting bangs, again and again. The sounds of a battleground. But on the night of December 2, these are only fireworks and the occasion is the annual lighting-up of the giant Christmas tree in Bethlehem’s Manger Square. A huge crowd of people cluster around, their upturned faces caught in the flickering light of thousands of smartphones held high, chanting a countdown as a light show streaks across the tree, before a canopy of bulbs overhead, and the whole tree itself, flash into gaudy colours and the firework show begins. All to the thumping beat of Arab pop. It’s an event that might have sent the original ox and ass running for the hills: more Atlantic City than “O Little Town”. Across the square, however, in a small arched doorway, another Christmas message has appeared — silently and unnoticed, in the past day or so. Painted on the door in cursive English script, it reads: “Peace on Earth”. There follows an asterisk, in the shape of a Bible-storybook star, and underneath, in much smaller letters: “Terms and conditions apply”. Just a few days later, the unrest following US president Donald Trump’s official recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital would vividly illustrate those terms and conditions, and this salutation, from the British graffiti artist Banksy, would take on a new irony.

Banksy’s unseen presence in this part of the West Bank has become increasingly powerful. Interviewed over email (the only way to communicate with the famously anonymous artist), he says jokily that when he first came to the region, “I was mainly attracted by the wall: the surface looked like it would take paint very well.” The wall in question is, of course, the impenetrable 30ft concrete-and-wire barrier, with its guarded watchtowers, that runs alongside and through the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. It carves through Bethlehem in a strange double-U shape, to ensure that the holy site of Rachel’s Tomb remains on the Israeli side.  This serpentine course means that there is an awful lot of wall in Bethlehem, and alongside the Aida refugee camp on its outskirts (home to more than 5,000 Palestinians); and the wall does indeed take paint well. The full length is a riot of graffiti, by a mass of different hands, painted and overpainted again and again — many recent ones are giant cartoons of Trump, including one in which he is hugging and kissing a watchtower. Banksy has been working here on and off since his first visit in 2003. By that time he was already well known in Britain as a ­clandestine street artist, first in his native Bristol, then in London and elsewhere. But his move into the commercial big time was yet to come. Techniques for illicitly removing his work from walls were rapidly being perfected, while Banksy’s then gallerist, Steve Lazarides, was a keen legal marketer. When in 2007 Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie forked out a cool £1m for a Banksy work, other celebrities — among them Christina Aguilera, Damien Hirst and Kate Moss — followed suit. Justin Bieber had Banksy’s famous image of the little girl with a balloon tattooed on his forearm. As Lazarides put it at the time, buyers in this Banksy craze were “rag trade, City boys or celebrities, [usually] under 45”.  In 2008, “Keep It Spotless (Defaced Hirst)” fetched $1.87m at Sotheby’s; it remains the artist’s auction record. Since then, various houses, shops and even sheds that host Banksy works have come to the market for several times their actual property value. No one knows, though, the prices of the illicit sales of work stolen from walls. 

Despite (or perhaps because of) his market success, Banksy gathered his share of detractors. He was accused of copying ideas, especially from French street artist Blek le Rat, and often regarded as a prankster whose hit-and-run visual aphorisms were amusing rather than deep. Yet all the commercial activity and sales of merchandise and new work via Pest Control, the company he set up in 2009 largely to control the flood of fakes, mean that Banksy’s personal wealth is conservatively estimated at some £20m. 

Despite the artist’s best efforts, the faking, thieving and destruction of his works continues everywhere in the world. In Bethlehem, too, powerful images have often disappeared surreptitiously, sometimes almost as soon as they have appeared on surfaces around the town or on the wall itself. One 2007 painting that raised hackles locally, of a donkey having its identity papers checked by a heavily armed Israeli soldier, has vanished and is — according to Banksy’s agent Jo Brooks — currently for sale on the international market. What’s more, cowboy gift shops, unashamedly selling Banksy knock-offs and copies, are everywhere. There is even a large one, bearing its slogan “Make hummus, not war”, right up against the wall of Banksy’s hotel. The Walled Off hotel (pronounced Waldorf) was opened earlier this year, aimed mainly at international visitors, with a range of rooms from the luxurious to a no-frills bunk-bed option at $60 a night. Starting with the over-lifesized plaster chimpanzee dressed as a 1930s bellboy at the front door, the period luggage he is carrying spilling ladies’ undies, the place is packed with Banksy-ish visual jokes, as well as his artwork. It proudly claims to be the hotel “with the worst view in the world” because it stands barely five metres from the looming expanse of the barrier, which at this point runs along what used to be a bustling shopping street, now a semi-deserted, rubble-strewn, potholed lane.

Graffiti rules here: this must be the only hotel where the guest information sheet includes advice about where to buy paint and hire ladders. From its pleasant ­terrace, the colourfully graffitied concrete in front of you seems almost jaunty in the bright daylight. At night, though, the wall’s full sinister menace is inescapable. Banksy is not new to ambitious enterprises: two years ago he set up Dismaland, a temporary “bemusement park” in Weston-super-Mare. Offering a dark twist on Disneyfied family entertainment, it was a place, as its publicity said, “where you can escape from mindless escapism”. Two years before that he announced a ­“residency” in New York, with plans to create a work somewhere around Manhattan and Brooklyn on each day of his 31-day stay. One of his stunts was to set up a stall beside Central Park, selling authentic signed pieces for $60 each. Only three were sold. 

But a hotel? In such a location? Given Banksy’s persona, it’s hardly surprising that some people assumed it was a joke. But this time, it seems, the joker was in earnest. “To be completely honest, I knew very little about the Middle East when I first went there. You know — just a sense from the news that it was a bunch of people habitually killing each other,” he says. “On my first trip to Palestine I arrived at night and was driven straight behind the wall. So I assumed the poverty, the donkeys, the water shortages, the electricity blackouts were all just facts of life in that part of the world. I was completely astounded when a week later I left through the checkpoint into Israel and 500 yards down the road there were expensively paved shopping centres, roundabouts planted with palm trees, brand new SUVs everywhere. Seeing the disparity between the two sides was shocking, because you could see the inequality was entirely avoidable.”

Over time, though, his involvement with the region has deepened from visiting graffiti artist to investor. The main reason he bought an old pottery works and converted it into a hotel, he says, “was for Wisam, my fixer”. This is Wisam Salsaa, now manager of The Walled Off, and the artist’s local representative — in everything, it seems, since keeping yourself entirely secret requires devoted allies. “I’d become good friends with [Wisam],” Banksy continues. “But the occupation was making him so fed up he was on the verge of leaving Palestine for a job washing dishes at a Belgo’s in Rotterdam. This is a man who runs several businesses, speaks five languages, employed half a dozen people, who was intelligent, brave and funny. I thought — it’s vital people like him don’t leave.” And then, in the inevitable twist, he adds, “Plus I didn’t want him coming to sleep on my couch.”

On the morning after Bethlehem’s tree-lighting party, the acclaimed film director Danny Boyle is standing in the middle of the dusty car park adjoining the hotel. Salsaa is there, organising everything as always, and so is Riham Isaac, Boyle’s Palestinian co-director in this newest Banksy project. There’s a scaffolding stage with a lighting rig, a few rows of plastic chairs, a huge camera boom, a couple of bickering sheep and an elegant white donkey tied up in the shade. It doesn’t look like a place where, in just a few hours, they will produce The Alternativity, a Christmas play performed by local children.  This morning, too, high on the wall overlooking the car park, a new Banksy piece, in his signature stencilled style, has appeared. It shows two winged cherubs, one holding a crowbar, tugging furiously at a gap between the concrete slabs of the wall, trying to jimmy it open.

Will The Alternativity hold a similarly political message? Apparently not. “I just got an email from Banksy out of the blue,” says Boyle. “I’d never been in touch with him before, though I knew his work of course. I respected what he was doing. And he just asked me to do this, and I said yes.” Boyle was paid £1; the contract describes him as “presenter”. On an earlier visit, Boyle had recruited Isaac, a local theatre director and teacher, to work on the project. She explains that she found and auditioned the children to perform and sing through Facebook. Many of the locals involved are Christian, though there are one or two hijabs under the Santa hats worn by the choir.

A film of the whole project is under way, directed by Jaimie D’Cruz, who worked with Banksy on his 2010 documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop. D’Cruz tells me that, even for Boyle, it was hard to hire equipment here. And although it is happening only a few hundred yards from the nearest checkpoint, three Israeli photographers declined to take pictures for the FT. Yet it feels peaceful, almost sleepy. Dusk falls quickly in the winter afternoons here, and when several hot dusty hours have passed, during which the two children’s choirs, the dancers and performers, even the donkey, have rehearsed the play, the five o’clock start is in darkness. Strapping ­security guards in military boots, their bulletproof vests with the strangely cosy slogan “PalSafe” on their backs, stride around as the lights start to glitter and the transformation of the dingy car park is complete. The hideous wall looming just behind us is forgotten. 

People arrive, dressed up and excited — families with noisy young children eating ice cream, older people, some local dignitaries who get the few chairs while everyone else mills around. There’s a small number of foreigners. Then it begins: carols and songs, sweetly sung in Arabic and a little English; some slapstick; some dancing; Mary on that donkey, of course; three comic and strident “wise women” instead of the kings; and the Christmas story is told. Despite the magic wand of an internationally famous director and some very expensive touches (a noisy snow machine, for instance), it was a Christmas play like thousands the world over: strangely reassuring, absurdly touching. The involvement of many dozens of local children and families in The Alternativity was a tribute to weeks of work on Isaac’s part. Banksy reveals a different aspect of the project: “The nativity was conceived as a rather clumsy Christmas stunt,” he says. “But almost as soon as the film crew arrived they reported back saying, ‘We’re going to have to reflect the local unease with the hotel,’ to which I said — unease? It turns out a lot of locals are rather suspicious of the project. In the end the Nativity play was wildly popular and has engaged with lots of children and their families. So the Nativity discovered a problem and then solved it — Merry Christmas.”

The Walled Off project throws Banksy’s anonymity into sharp focus. He seems so present — the new works popping up, the casual way people say, after the show, “Oh Banksy really liked the snow machine.” Was he there? Watching from an upstairs window? Mingling with the crowd? Or was someone livestreaming it all for him — and if so, to where? In an age obsessed with fame and name, he is a sort of alternative celebrity; but he is one, sure enough. To break cover now would be to ruin the brand — and here it is very clear to what extent the secret of his identity is in the hands of a few devoted people around him, who make his life and work possible. He obviously inspires a loyalty that runs deep. Even Boyle has not been face-to-face with him. “When I agreed to do the Nativity play, Banksy said, ‘Do you want to meet?’ And I said ‘No!’ We did the entire thing by email.” The wider question about the whole project is — why? Do Banksy and his supporters believe that his art, or anyone’s art for that matter, can effect meaningful change?

During a visit to Aida, the nearby Palestinian refugee camp, it was noticeable how my guide Marwan Frarjeh spoke about the artist with familiarity and warmth. Establishing the hotel in what was previously a no-go area, he said, had brought some life and hope, not to mention international visitors. 

Boyle has definite views about the role of culture amid such ­difficult political realities. “I worked in Northern Ireland for years,” he says. “To be honest I never thought anything would change there, it seemed impossible. But look, it did.” In Berlin, too, he learnt the hard facts about walls. “And that one came down, in the end.” He is currently working in South Africa, with its still painful apartheid legacies, and while he wouldn’t go so far as to attribute these important political shifts to the power of the arts, he says: “It’s about bringing culture, it’s always important. It’s essential, in fact.”

Banksy himself is modest, in answer to the question about the possible effectiveness of his art, and even if his replies — like the project itself — sometimes seem impossibly naive, he remains optimistic.  “There aren’t many situations where a street artist is much use,” he says. “Most of my politics is for display purposes only. But in Palestine there’s a slim chance the art could have something useful to add — anything that appeals to young people, specifically young Israelis, can only help.” 

Jan Dalley is the FT’s arts editor. The Alternativity is screened on BBC2 this Sunday at 9pm Follow @FTMag on Twitter to find out about our latest stories first. Subscribe to FT Life on YouTube for the latest FT Weekend videos

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Interview in WIRED by Nancy Miller. 13 April 2010

Banksy Talks Art, Power and Exit Through the Gift Shop

By Nancy Miller / WIRED, APR 13, 2010

What is art? And who gets to make it? For nearly two decades, enigmatic British street artist Banksy has challenged the rarefied art world, transforming public spaces into culture-jamming spectacles.

The hoodie-sporting, spray-can–wielding Scarlet Pimpernel makes his directorial debut with Exit Through the Gift Shop, a documentary billed as “the first great art-disaster movie.”

And what a brilliant disaster it is. The film centers on the relationship between the elusive Banksy and Thierry Guetta, an amateur French filmmaker who owns a store in Los Angeles. Guetta begins recording the clandestine antics of Banksy (and other street-art luminaries, including Shepard Fairey and Space Invader) with a mix of bumbling awe and utter incompetence.

As the film project stalls, Banksy begins to realize Guetta isn’t really a filmmaker at all, but a Warhol-y mess in the making, with big plans to become the Next Big Thing. Below, Banksy talks to Wired.com in an e-mail interview about the film (which opens Friday in select cities), his secret identity and why Guetta, aka Mr. Brainwash, is the quintessential artist of our times.

Wired.com: After watching Exit Through the Gift Shop, I still couldn’t figure out if Guetta, the director-turned-artist, is for real. He doesn’t seem to know anything about art, yet you allowed him to make a film — and then he turned the tables on you. What do you think about him now?

Banksy: As far as I’m aware, Mr. Brainwash doesn’t know very much about art, especially his own. He seems to mainly judge the success of an art show by how many square feet it covers and whether it makes any money. This probably makes him the ultimate artist of our times.

Wired.com: You keep your identity secret — ostensibly because of your methods. Your appearance in the film suggests you will at some point unmask yourself. Is this documentary a small part of some greater burlesque theater, with your identity as the ultimate reveal?

Banksy: The film is the end of my public life rather than the beginning. This is the most you’ll ever see of me, if I can help it.

Wired.com: Your work explores power, tests power and is therefore revolutionary, encouraging people to subvert the powers that be. Mr. Brainwash kind of did this to you. He looked at the power structure around him (you and Fairey) and exploited it for his own ends. Does that make him a student — or a con man?

Banksy: Thierry essentially trespassed into the art business, and even in the wild world of vandalism there’s a lot of conservatism — people don’t like to see the rules being broken. The story of Mr. Brainwash should be inspirational, and in the hands of a more cheerful director it probably would’ve been. The film might come across as a bit cynical, but it’s important not to forget these are revolutionary times in art.

There’s a whole new audience out there, and it’s never been easier to sell it, particularly at the lower levels. 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. We need to make it count.