A Palestinian boy looks at an image painted by British street artist Banksy in the West Bank town of Bethlehem in December, 2007.Ammar Awad/Reuters
I was dying to know who Banksy was.
I really did not want to know who Banksy was.
With contradictory emotions and heaps of curiosity, I devoured the investigation published this week which uncovered his identity. If you don’t want to know, stop reading. Or keep reading, because even with this multi-byline, in-depth Reuters report, we still don’t really know. Kind of.
Banksy came up in Bristol, England, in the 1990s, became a mainstream sensation in the 2000s, snuck his own art onto the walls of some of the biggest museums in the world, and captivated New York in 2013 when, for a month, he aimed to create at least one piece of street art every day. Protest work in the West Bank and Gaza beginning in 2005 was powerful and subversive.
His work was accessible in every way; you didn’t have to go to a museum to see it, you didn’t need a dense wall plaque to understand it.
Elusive street artist Banksy’s identity finally revealed
The New York City “treasure hunt,” as some described it, has been outmatched only by the continuing hunt for the ultimate prize: his name. Each sensation has furthered the mystery. Who was this artist (or artists?) who has gone from London to Manhattan to Bethlehem skewering war and greed – and the art world itself, most famously when Girl with Balloon sold at a high-profile Sotheby’s auction and immediately began self-destructing, with a paper shredder hidden in the frame? (The shredded version became worth many more millions than the painting originally sold for.)
A gallery technician adjusts Banksy's artwork 'Girl with Balloon' at Sotheby's auction house at Olympia in London, Feb. 2, 2007.Luke MacGregor/Reuters
There is no question that this secrecy is a great part of Banksy’s appeal. Mystique makes for great marketing. But there’s more to his anonymity than that.
Bristol’s graffiti scene was established as an artistic protest against oppression and grim economic conditions. The vibrant movement was broken up after 1989’s Operation Anderson, a police crackdown that saw dozens of arrests. What remained was forced underground. Then came Banksy.
So his anonymity did not start as a marketing ploy. It may have developed into that – with or without intention – but it began as a vital tool, allowing him to work as a graffiti artist.
Along the way, however, the mystery has fuelled his fame, serving up the delicious irony of the world’s most famous living artist being both a household name and a complete unknown.
Further, if these wise, witty and humane observances came from a person we could identify, rather than a mysterious cloak-and-dagger artist, would they have less power than if they were created by this phantom everyman/nobody?
Many Elena Ferrante fans don’t want to know the Italian author’s true identity either. Does it really matter? Would knowing, in fact, colour – or even lessen – her writing somehow?
Previous investigations have identified Banksy as Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja (this in 2016, by a Scottish journalism student, Craig Williams) and someone named Robin Gunningham, who had also grown up in Bristol – a conclusion made by Mail on Sunday journalist Claudia Joseph in 2008. Scientists, including former Vancouver Police Department criminologist Kim Rossmo, later supported that theory – but not definitively.
A woman takes a picture of artwork by Banksy, covered with a protective organic glass, as workers clear rubble from a dismantled residential building in Irpin, Ukraine, in May, 2023.GENYA SAVILOV/AFP/Getty Images
Both men are prime suspects in the new Reuters investigation, which begins in Ukraine in 2022, where Banksy pieces began appearing mysteriously at the same time Mr. Del Naja was there. But the key piece of evidence is a billboard altered by Banksy in Manhattan in 2000, geolocated by Reuters to a particular building and matched to court records indicating who had confessed to defacing the ad.
Was this a good use of journalistic resources? Checking archival police reports, showing people in war-ravaged Ukraine photos of potential Banksys? Does this investigation add anything to the world?
It’s certainly of interest. The article was the top-read story on The Globe and Mail website on Monday. Seems many of us are curious - and/or looking for distraction from the hell going on in the world.
But would this report prove risky for the man who is apparently Banksy? Is he not entitled to his privacy? His lawyer urged Reuters not to publish. Reuters, citing Banksy’s “profound and enduring influence on culture, the art industry and international political discourse,” went ahead.
If you don’t want to know the name, you can stop reading now. Although even knowing his name does not mean you will know his name.
Ms. Joseph, the tabloid reporter, was correct. Banksy is Robin Gunningham. But Robin Gunningham no longer exists. As Reuters reports, Mr. Gunningham legally changed his name years ago to one of the most common in Britain: David Jones. There are thousands of them. It’s now perfectly reasonable to believe that with the secret out, Banksy has changed his name again. Perhaps he did so before the report was even published.
The mystery continues. Isn’t it wonderful?