Banksy is a pseudonym for a street artist who became a famous and high-priced “establishment’ artist, all the while remaining completely unknown—until now. (Actually, the Daily Mail had correctly guessed his identity in 2008). Banksy started drawing graffiti in Bristol, England, and then began using stencils, which were quicker to put up—making him less likely to get caught. But he did get caught in 2000 for vandalizing a billboard in New York, and for that he had to disclose his real name. A spiffy piece of detective work published in Reuters two days ago, shows that the Mail was correct, and that Banksy is in fact a 50-53-year old white man named Robin Gunningham. He remains a multimillionaire.
His most famous work can be seen here: “Girl with Balloon,” showing a girl trying to catch the string of a heart-shaped balloon. It’s been sold in several versions, including one on paper that was deliberately shredded by a machine inside its frame while it was being auctioned off at Sotheby’s. Here’s the event, and the video—showing the preparation—was clearly made by Banksy. It was another of his pranks, but one that was viewed (and priced as) Banksy art itself.
And the explanation (note what the shredded artwork went for!):
On 5 October 2018, a 2006 framed copy of the artwork was auctioned at Sotheby’s selling for £1,042,000 – a record high for the artist. Moments after the closing bid, the artwork began to self-destruct by means of a hidden mechanical paper shredder that Banksy had built into the frame bottom. Only the lower half shredded. Banksy released an image of the shredding on Instagram with the words “Going, going gone..”. Sotheby’s said, “We have not experienced this situation in the past where a painting spontaneously shredded”, leading some market watchers to speculate the remains of the painting will be worth even more. Banksy released a video of the shredding and how the shredder was installed into the frame in case the picture ever went up for auction.
The woman who won the bidding at the auction decided to go through with the purchase. The partially shredded work has been given a new title, Love Is in the Bin, and was authenticated by Banksy’s authentication body Pest Control. Sotheby’s released a statement that called it “the first artwork in history to have been created live during an auction.” Love Is in the Bin was itself sold at Sotheby’s for £18 million in October 2021.
Note that the price shot up after the drawing was shredded! It is considered an “art intervention“!
Bansky is both political (and pro-Palestinian) as well as mischievous. And filthy rich. If you’re into art, or want to see how the mystery of his identity was solved for good, click on the Reuter’s screenshot below or see the article archived for free here. There’s also a short take at Entertainment Weekly.
It’s a long but fascinating investigation, and if you’ve been following Banksy over the years, you’ll want to read it. But I’ve taken excerpts from condensed summary from EW:
One of the art world’s biggest modern mysteries may have just been solved.
A new report claims to have once-and-for-all unmasked the elusive graffiti artist Banksy, who has been operating under complete anonymity since the early 1990s.
The investigation, published Friday by Reuters, combs through and eventually sets aside some of the buzzier theories as to the “Girl with Balloon” artist’s true identity. Is he the Massive Attack frontman Robert Del Naja? Or the street artist Thierry Guetta, also known as Mr. Brainwash, who was the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop, which Banksy directed and — completely disguised, of course — also featured in?
After nearly three decades of speculation, journalists Simon Gardner, James Pearson, and Blake Morrison claim “beyond dispute” that Banksy is a man named Robin Gunningham.
. . . The final identification started with a clue from Banksy Captured, a 2019 memoir from Steve Lazarides, who managed the artist from the late 1990s through 2008. The year that book was published, Lazarides posted a photo from 2000 of an “aborted Banksy work” to his Instagram — a defaced Marc Jacobs billboard in New York City that was left incomplete after authorities allegedly arrested the artist.
. . .Police documents and a court file relating to the arrest that Reuters unearthed repeatedly make reference to Gunningham — who signed his own name at the bottom of a written confession.
Though police sought to charge Gunningham with a felony, he was released and the charges were reduced to a misdemeanor after posting $1,500 bail, temporarily turning over his passport, and completing five days of community service.
. . .This isn’t the first time Gunningham has been suspected as the real hand behind the mysterious graffiti artist. The Daily Mail pointed the finger at Gunningham in 2008, the same year he legally changed his name to David Jones. But suspicions persisted around figures like Del Naja, Guetta, and British politician Billy Gannon.
Banksy started out as a guerrilla artist whose quickly rendered, stencil-like illustrations with an often highly political charge garnered him instant notoriety. He has made work in innocuous corners of major metropolitan cities like London and New York City, but has also become known for provocative illustrations left in conflict zones like Ukraine and the Palestinian West Bank.
And, from the Reuters exposé, here’s how he was caught and identified:
In September 2000, Banksy was shifting from painting freehand to using stencils, a method suited for repetition and speed. But when he climbed up on [Gallerist Ivy] Brown’s roof to have at the billboard, he painted freehand.
The half-finished image resembled a billboard Banksy saw in Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws.” In his 2023 “Cut & Run” exhibition in Glasgow, the artist said the movie scene inspired him to get into graffiti. In “Jaws,” someone doctored a tourism billboard depicting a woman on an inflatable raft in the sea. The vandal added a shark fin and gave the woman bulging eyes and a speech bubble: “HELP!!! SHARK.” [JAC: The Reuters site has a photo of the doctored billboard.]
In a painting spree, Lazarides wrote, Banksy “doctored the Marc Jacobs Men billboard so that the model had goofy teeth” and drew a “giant speech bubble” that was strangely empty.
That’s because New York police caught Banksy before he could finish.. . . . . at 4:20 a.m. on September 18, 2000, authorities found a man defacing a billboard on the roof of 675 Hudson Street. Because damages exceeded $1,500, police sought to charge him with a felony. Among the documents is the man’s handwritten confession.
Within hours of his arrest, documents show, the man was assigned a public defender. That afternoon, he was released after agreeing to temporarily turn over his passport.
The court file shows he would later post $1,500 bail in exchange for his passport. The felony charges were reduced to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. He paid a fine and fees totaling $310, and by early 2001, he completed his sentence of five days of community service, the records show. On the bail form, he gave his address as 160 E. 25th Street in New York, the location of one of Manhattan’s most eccentric hotels.
. . . When Banksy was busted in 2000, he wasn’t on the New York Police Department’s radar, said Steve Mona, the now-retired lieutenant who ran the 75-member vandal squad back then. The police had no idea they had nabbed “Banksy” because the artist had only recently begun employing the style and pseudonym that would make him famous.
Given Banksy’s celebrity, the name of the culprit now takes on significance. It wasn’t Del Naja who defaced the billboard atop 675 Hudson Street. The man who confessed was Robin Gunningham.
In addition to his signature, Gunningham is repeatedly named in court and police documents related to the arrest.
The Reuters piece photos of his signed confession, with “Robin Gunningham” appearing at the bottom, barely legible. The rest of the excerpts are from Reuters:
The Mail on Sunday had been right in 2008 in making the case that Gunningham was Banksy. In hindsight, Gunningham’s effort to hide his identity began falling apart with his September 2000 arrest in New York. Records of the bust existed and they contained his real name. The books by former manager Lazarides wouldn’t be published until 2019. But the photos and the details Lazarides included about the arrest enabled us to pinpoint where Banksy was apprehended and the ad he defaced.
There’s one more bit of evidence that is telling. In 2022, Bansky did seven famous murals in Ukraine (you can see them here) but there was no record that a “Robin Gunningham” ever entered Ukraine (remember, he had a passport). Reuters reveals that Bansky had since adopted the name of “David Jones.” This was verified by several documents, but Reuters isn’t making them public out of the desire to preserve some of Gunningham’s information, including his address. (The documents are, however, apparently available publicly.)
At any rate, Bansky did enter Ukraine at the same time as his painting partner, Robert Del Naja, and the crucial evidence was found:
On October 28, 2022, the day Duley and Del Naja entered Ukraine, a “David Jones” also crossed the border at the same location, according to a source familiar with immigration procedures. The source also told us the date of birth listed on Jones’ passport. It was the same as Robin Gunningham’s birthday.
According to the source, records also indicate Jones left Ukraine on November 2, 2022, the same day Del Naja departed.
I don’t know what will happen now: will Gunningham still use the name “Bansky,” turn out art under his birth name, Robin Gunningham, or use his changed name, David Jones? My guess is that whatever name he uses, he’ll still make art, and perhaps mysteriously, but now that he’s known, perhaps the work won’t be worth as much as it was when Banksy was a ghost.
Here’s an Instagram Post purporting to show two photos of Gunningham. You can see more at this Google Search page.
Banksy must get around – there’s a couple paintings on various electrical boxes etc. down the street from me.
Or, perhaps Banksy is a method, idea, a spirit – namely, using a stencil with spray paint.
IOW We are all Banksy.
That sort of thing.
Sort of like Shepard Fairey’s “Obey Giant” stencil artworks. “Giant” became a huge phenomenon with many people copying the stencil and posting it everywhere.
Oh yeah, that one – good call!
I always figured there were plenty of folks, including reporters, who knew Banksy’s real identity, and just didn’t reveal it out of a gentlemanly understanding. Kind of like Daft Punk – it was always possible to find real photos of them, but nobody really wanted to reveal them, since the focus was the art, not the people behind it.
I’d always hoped that none of them would come out and reveal his identity to maintain the aura. But I guess these reporters felt like they had to make a name for themselves.
I’m surprised it took so long.
Though unmasking the guy hardly seems like the most important journalistic coup ever carried off, I’m glad to see it done. Being anonymous was, along with the cute alias, what went to make this fellow’s dumb stuff fashionable in what we laughingly call the art world. Will the loss of Banksy’s anonymity take away any of his mystique, I wonder? If so, it’s a positive.
He is a competent graffiti artist. But of course the frenzy around him was not the art but the mystique, and that his art was a shared event where owning a piece, or having one appear on your property made you part of the event. I give him credit for marketing.