This text is part of the special Pleasures notebook
While a new exhibition offers to rediscover his works now in Montreal, the most famous anonymous artist in the world remains as elusive and enigmatic as ever. What if we could unravel the “Banksy mystery” by heading to the southwest of England, where his graffiti appeared more than 30 years ago in the city of Bristol where he was supposedly born?
Since he sprayed his first incendiary works, the stencil artist has been in the spotlight at the traveling exhibition The Art of Banksy Without Limits has done everything to remain in the shadows of the dimly lit alleys of his early days. This carefully preserved anonymity has not failed to fuel a good number of more or less far-fetched theories about his supposed identity. Robert Del Naja, of Massive Attack, like Jamie Hewlett, of Gorillaz, have notably been suspected of donning Banksy’s costume at nightfall.
According to a tabloid, The Mail on Sunday not to name him, the invisible graffiti artist would rather answer to the name of Robin Gunningham in the civil registry. For his part, the main person concerned has walled himself up in silence. He has just granted to the BBC journalist Nigel Wrench – in an unpublished interview from 2003 recently resurrected – that he could be called Robbie. But can we really trust the words of a man who has always handled the art of joke better than anyone?
The cult of secrecy
In Bristol, where Banksy got his start in the early 1990s, everyone has their own ideas on the matter. But no one necessarily wants to break the “pact of silence” that seems to implicitly link the urban art legend to his home city. “I know very well who he is, but I prefer him to remain anonymous,” Rob Dean, who founded the organization Where The Wall a few years ago, to spread the basics of graffiti culture to as many people as possible, tells me.
Every Saturday, this enthusiast gives introductory stencil lessons, using the iconic model Girl with Balloonby Banksy, which skyrocketed in price at auction before self-destructing in front of a stunned auction house in 2018. “The challenge he gives us, when we look at one of his works, is more important to him than anything else,” says Rob Dean. “Not many people can have both anonymity and fame. That puts him in a unique position.”
John Nation also knows Banksy’s real name. The “godfather of graffiti”, as he is nicknamed here, witnessed the emergence of the future legend at the foot of the mythical wall of the Barton Hill Youth Center in Bristol. In the mid-1980s, this center welcomed, under the supervision of John Nation, a whole generation of talented artists, such as Jody Thomas and Inkie. The latter cut their teeth there under the gaze of a young guy full of desire who did not yet call himself Banksy.
A real treasure hunt
At the time, the enfant terrible of Bristol only conceived graffiti as a succession of stylized letters. It was only later that the Zorro of the bomb converted to the art of stencil. Witness to this transition, John Nation today lends his voice to the audio commentary of the self-guided tour A Piece of… Banksy! allowing you to set off, with just a 3G or 4G phone in hand, on the trail of one of the best-kept mysteries in the southwest of England.
From the heights of Bristol to the docks of the port city, this treasure hunt represents a unique opportunity to discover Banksy’s original works in an urban environment that gives them their raison d’être. Created in the late 1990s, in the heart of Stokes Croft, The Mild Mild West depicts a teddy bear throwing a Molotov cocktail at riot police. The work echoes the protest tradition of this working-class neighborhood where the committed artist, a herald of civil disobedience, shook his first bombs.
A pure product of his environment, Banksy always chooses the location of each of his paintings with care and mischief. In the city center, the Well Hung Lover is displayed in all indecency on the facade of a building that once housed a sexual health clinic. When it appeared in 2006, this stenciled vaudeville, illustrating a woman, her husband and her “well-hung” lover hanging from the window, triggered a wave of hostility among Bristol councillors who are warring against wild graffiti.
The vandalized vandal
In fact, the controversial painting came close to being attacked by a pressure washer before the city council was forced to retreat under popular pressure. In an online poll, Bristolians overwhelmingly voted to save the painting. Well Hung LoverThe scandalous work also became the first legalised street art mural in the UK.
The victory prompted local authorities to slowly review their policies towards Banksy and the street art in general. But the real turning point came later, when the Robin des rues invited himself to the Bristol Museum in 2009. Rather rare in museums (he disapproves of most of the unofficial retrospectives devoted to him), the stencil artist attracted, in three months, no less than 300,000 people with his exhibition-event, Banksy versus Bristol Museum.
Now raised to the rank of local glory, the ghost artist nonetheless retains his share of detractors. Some of his works are regularly vandalized with paintball. The Mild Mild West has already had to be restored several times. The Well Hung Lover and the Girl with the Pierced Eardrumnear Bristol docks, were not so lucky and still bear the dripping scars of these vicious attacks.
Who could possibly want to blame Banksy? Artists jealous of his success? Local residents outraged to see tourists and onlookers crowding under their windows? Bristol Rovers Blues supporters who saw red after hearing Banksy declare his love for rival soccer team Bristol City Reds? Here again, speculation is rife and fuels the fantasy machine. The myth of Banksy, for its part, has probably not finished feeding on these rumors and other mysteries.
This content was produced by the Special Publications Team of Dutyrelevant to marketing. The writing of the Duty did not take part in it.