The World of Myth Magazine

We would lose a lot if we knew who Banksy is. Mystery makes him more interesting. That much seems indisputable, but the quest to find the illusive artist’s identity never seems to go away. People will always want to know – we love investigating a good mystery as much we like good answers, but in a detective story once you know who the killer is the mystery, and the attractiveness of the story, goes away. Life is more interesting when we have unknowns. In this age, when science has become so sophisticated, we still need our small mysteries.

But this is not the only reason we should let him remain anonymous. Banksy is not just a great artist, in a way he is also showing us something that we tend to forget about art – that it can be and perhaps should be appreciated and even interpreted as itself, without biases or reference to biographical details, or anything like that. If you go to read about a painting by Picasso or Andy Worhol, typically the first thing that is mentioned is the artist’s life around the piece and their attitudes to the times it was produced in. Because we do not know who he is, we can only infer Banksy’s messages and concerns through his art and our own viewpoints.

What we can know about Banksy from his art alone is that he is British, culturally and politically astute, apparently a leftist; and we can infer just from where his art has appeared he is wealthy and extremely clever. No one who has evaded identification while able to travel across continents, and even into Ukraine during the war, could do so without being resourceful and intelligent. Of course this adds fuel to the mystery, but it might mean that Banksy’s identity will only be revealed on his own terms – when he wants it to be known.

It does not seem like that will happen soon. Banksy is having too much fun being a mystery man for our time, evading both authorities and art experts. There is something romantic in that too, which is another reason why it would probably be best kept a secret. The reality of who Banksy is will be far more mundane than the fantasies we can put onto them, and would certainly rob his work of its mystique and unique place in modern art.

It is also interesting that Banksy has used graffiti, street art, as his medium, which is associated with vandalism and a sort of urban corruption. This is in the vein of the Postmodernist mixing of high and low culture, the comic book and the opera, and blurring the lines between those two things. If graffiti can be art then anything can be art, and that is not meant to devalue art or say something noble about graffiti – it is based on the now old idea that art can literally be anything. All that seems to matter is the intention of the artist, the emotion or message they are communicating, and to a lesser extent the skill with which they have communicated that through.

It cannot be denied that Banksy’s work is high quality, and people who have studied his work have put a lot of effort and time (and words on Wikipedia) into describing exactly how he produced his works.

But his technique or the way he creates new symbols out of old images like he does (like he did with the above image of a girl letting go of a balloon for example), is not the main point of his work. Nor, really, are the individual pieces. Of course individual pieces are important, but we need to look beyond them to understand Bansky as an artist.

Banksy being anonymous is, instead of just a quirky part of his career, the point of it. Through his anonymity he is critiquing the snobbery and over-specialization of the art establishment. Anyone, regardless of their level of education or their exposure to art can enjoy a Banksy. He uses very common symbols in interesting ways, and he can be very direct at times. You will not find something obscure or off-putting in his work either, and yet it is very skilfully made: with symbolism and a purpose. Also, importantly, Banksy’s art is found in the streets and not in the museums or art galleries. They are supposed to be seen by ordinary people.

He has a different intention and modus operandi from the more traditional artist, who wants their work appreciated by the art community. Banksy is trying to democratize art, reminding us that culture is whatever the majority of people make of it. This is why it would be better if we never found out who he is, and we should never try to find out – if we did discover his identity we would rob him of his wider message, and the very impetus of his art. Art should never be restricted to the experts. In a way, we all understand art just by appreciating it.