Banksy From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Banksy The cover of Banksy's 2005 compilation, Wall and Piece. Birth name (unknown) Born Unknown Bristol Field Graffiti Street art Bristol underground scene Sculpture Satire Social commentary Awards Toronto Film Critics Association Awards – Best First Feature 2010 Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association – Best Documentary Film 2010 Banksy is a pseudonymous United Kingdom-based graffiti artist, political activist, film director, and painter. His satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stencilling technique. Such artistic works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world.[1] Banksy's work was made up of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians.[2] According to author and graphic designer Tristan Manco and the book Home Sweet Home, Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England.[3] The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher, but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s."[4] Observers have noted that his style is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris.[5][6] Banksy says that he was inspired by "3D", a graffiti artist who later became a founding member of Massive Attack.[7] Known for his contempt for the government in labelling graffiti as vandalism, Banksy displays his art on publicly visible surfaces such as walls, even going as far as to build physical prop pieces. Banksy does not sell photographs or reproductions of his street graffiti, but art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder.[8] Banksy's first film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, billed as "the world's first street art disaster movie", made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.[9] The film was released in the UK on 5 March 2010.[10] In January 2011, he was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Documentary for the film. Contents [hide] 1 Career o 1.1 Early career (1992–2001) o 1.2 Exhibitions (2002–2003) o 1.3 £10 notes to Barely Legal (2004–2006) o 1.4 The Banksy effect (2006–2007) o 1.5 2008 o 1.6 The Cans Festival o 1.7 2009 o 1.8 Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) o 1.9 2011 o 1.10 2012 o 1.11 2013 o 1.12 Better Out Than In (2013) 2 Notable artworks 3 Technique 4 Political and social themes 5 Critics 6 Bibliography 7 See also 8 References 9 External links Career Early career (1992–2001) Banksy began as a freehand graffiti artist in 1990–1994[11] as one of Bristol's DryBreadZ Crew (DBZ), with Kato and Tes.[12] He was inspired by local artists and his work was part of the larger Bristol underground scene with Nick Walker, Inkie and 3D.[13][14] During this time he met Bristol photographer Steve Lazarides, who began selling Banksy's work, later becoming his agent.[15] From the start Banksy used stencils as elements of his freehand pieces, too.[11] By 2000 he had turned to the art of stencilling after realising how much less time it took to complete a work. He claims he changed to stencilling while he was hiding from the police under a rubbish lorry, when he noticed the stencilled serial number[16] and by employing this technique, he soon became more widely noticed for his art around Bristol and London.[16] He played football with theEaston Cowboys and Cowgirls in the 1990s and toured with the club to Mexico in 2001.[17] Banksy's first known large wall mural was "The Mild Mild West" painted in 1997 to cover advertising of a former solicitors' office on Stokes Croft Avenue, Bristol. It depicts a teddybear lobbing a Molotov cocktail at three riot police. [18] Stencil on the waterline of The Thekla, an entertainment boat in centralBristol – (wider view). The image of Death is based on a nineteenth-century etching illustrating the pestilence ofThe Great Stink.[19] Banksy's stencils feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans. The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist or anti-establishment. Subjects often include rats, apes, policemen, soldiers, children, and the elderly. In July 2011 one of Banksy's early works, Gorilla in a Pink Mask, which had been a prominent landmark on the exterior wall of a former social club in Eastville for over ten years, was unwittingly painted over after the premises became a Muslim cultural centre.[20][21] Exhibitions (2002–2003) 1 On 19 June 2002, Banksy's first Los Angeles exhibition debuted at 33 ⁄3 Gallery, a tiny Silver Lake venue owned by Frank Sosa. The exhibition, entitled Existencilism, was curated by 1 [22] 33 ⁄3 Gallery, Malathion LA's Chris Vargas, Funk Lazy Promotions' Grace Jehan, and B+. In 2003, at an exhibition called Turf War, held in a warehouse, Banksy painted on animals. Although the RSPCA declared the conditions suitable, an animal rights activist chained herself to the railings in protest.[23] He later moved on to producing subverted paintings;[citation needed] one example is Monet's Water Lily Pond, adapted to include urban detritus such as litter and a shopping trolley floating in its reflective waters; another is Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, redrawn to show that the characters are looking at a British football hooligan, dressed only in his Union Flag underpants, who has just thrown an object through the glass window of the cafe. These oil paintings were shown at a twelve-day exhibition in Westbourne Grove, London in 2005.[24] Banksy art in Brick Lane, East End, 2004. Banksy, along with Shepard Fairey, Dmote and others created work at a warehouse exhibition in Alexandria, Sydney for Semi-Permanent in 2003. Approximately 1,500 people attended. £10 notes to Barely Legal (2004–2006) In August 2004, Banksy produced a quantity of spoof British £10 notes substituting the picture of the Queen's head with Diana, Princess of Wales's head and changing the text "Bank of England" to "Banksy of England." Someone threw a large wad of these into a crowd at Notting Hill Carnival that year, which some recipients then tried to spend in local shops. These notes were also given with invitations to a Santa's Ghetto exhibition by Pictures on Walls. The individual notes have since been selling on eBay for about £200 each. A wad of the notes were also thrown over a fence and into the crowd near the NME signing tent at The Reading Festival. A limited run of 50 signed posters containing ten uncut notes were also produced and sold by Pictures on Walls for £100 each to commemorate the death of Princess Diana. One of these sold in October 2007 at Bonhamsauction house in London for £24,000. A stencil of Charles Manson in a prison suit, hitchhiking to anywhere,Archway, London In August 2005, Banksy, on a trip to the Palestinian territories, created nine images on the Israeli West Bank wall.[25] Banksy held an exhibition called Barely Legal, billed as a "three-day vandalised warehouse extravaganza" in Los Angeles, on the weekend of 16 September 2006. The exhibition featured a live "elephant in a room," painted in a pink and gold floral wallpaper pattern, which, according to leaflets handed out at the exhibition, was intended to draw attention to the issue of world poverty. Although the Animal Services Department had issued a permit for the elephant, after complaints from animal rights activists, the elephant appeared unpainted on the final day. Its owners rejected claims of mistreatment and said that the elephant had done "many, many movies. She's used to makeup."[26] Banksy also made artwork displaying Queen Victoria as a lesbian and satirical pieces that incorporated art made by Andy Warhol and Leonardo da Vinci.[27] The Banksy effect (2006–2007) "There are crimes that become innocent and even glorious through their splendour, number and excess." – Banksy[28] After Christina Aguilera bought an original of Queen Victoria as a lesbian and two prints for £25,000,[29] on 19 October 2006, a set of Kate Moss paintings sold in Sotheby's London for £50,400, setting an auction record for Banksy's work. The six silk-screen prints, featuring the model painted in the style of Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe pictures, sold for five times their estimated value. His stencil of a green Mona Lisa with real paint dripping from her eyes sold for £57,600 at the same auction.[30] In December, journalist Max Foster coined the phrase, "the Banksy effect," to illustrate how interest in other street artists was growing on the back of Banksy's success.[31] Naked Man image by Banksy, on the wall of a sexual health clinic[32] in Park Street, Bristol. Following popular support, the City Council has decided it will be allowed to remain – (wider view). On 21 February 2007, Sotheby's auction house in London auctioned three works, reaching the highest ever price for a Banksy work at auction: over £102,000 for his Bombing Middle England. Two of his other graffiti works, Balloon Girl and Bomb Hugger, sold for £37,200 and £31,200 respectively, which were well above their estimated prices.[33] The following day's auction saw a further three Banksy works reach soaring prices: Ballerina with Action Man Parts reached £96,000; Glory sold for £72,000;Untitled (2004) sold for £33,600; all significantly above estimated values.[34] To coincide with the second day of auctions, Banksy updated his website with a new image of an auction house scene showing people bidding on a picture that said, "I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit."[35] In February 2007, the owners of a house with a Banksy mural on the side in Bristol decided to sell the house through Red Propeller art gallery after offers fell through because the prospective buyers wanted to remove the mural.