Hey guys! In today's video I will be telling you some fun facts about Banksy while turning
him into a cute, cartoon anime-like character. Some fun facts you may or may not know about
Banksy -- he's an anonymous street artist known best for his freehand graffiti and
stencil artwork put in public places. He's so secretive in fact, that the
only thing we know about his past is that he was probably born in England.
Though his fame continues to grow, he chooses to remain completely unidentified.
Interviews, while incredibly rare, are conducted via email or with altered voice responses put on tape.
In fact, the drawing I'm doing today is based on an alleged interview he had back in 2003.
With his identity well guarded, he first gained notoriety in 1993 for his freehand graffiti,
but by 2000 he began to use stencils to enhance his speed.
Stealthily and with humorous wit, Banksy has merged graffiti with installation and performance. For
instance, in his 2003 exhibition Turf War, he painted on the bodies of live pigs, sheep, and cows.
His 2005 exhibition Crude Oils displayed tons of parodies of famous paintings including
Monet's Lily Pads, and Van Gogh's Sunflowers.
During this exhibition, he released 200 live rats into the gallery he had rented.
Banksy had said that rats are the ultimate role models because they are unloved and undesirable.
But despite that, they still survive and have enough power to disrupt large communities.
Again in 2005, a completely disguised Banksy installed his own work on the walls of major
museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Tate Britain. Banksy describes himself as a quality
vandal, challenging political and art institutions of all kinds no matter their political standing.
In September 2006, he had a one weekend warehouse installation in Los Angeles called Barely Legal.
He decorated a live elephant, which attracted large crowds despite the lack of publicity.
The elephant was placed in a living room and was painted to match the wallpaper,
symbolizing the elephant in the room. The elephant in the room referred to how billions of people
are in poverty, but while a lot of people sit and feel sad about it, they rarely do a thing to help.
In 2008, Banksy held the Cans Festival, which was a play on the Cannes Film Festival.
There he encouraged visitors to add their art to a South London rail tunnel.
He and 40 other international artists had already added their own airbrush paintings to the tunnel.
Banksy in 2009 held a surprise show at the city museum and art gallery in Bristol,
which had animatronics, oil paintings, and an old ice cream truck. The show was held in the
council run museum, and was kept a secret from the council bosses. This was his first show where his
work was purposefully on display for the public. He stated that: "This is the first show I've ever
done where taxpayers' money is being used to hang my pictures up rather than scrape them off."
Aside from his murals, Banksy had also released a few books: Banging Your Head Against a
Brick Wall, Existencilism, and Wall and Piece -- all documenting his projects and iconic pieces of work.
In 2010, Banksy directed the film Exit Through the Gift Shop, a film about some of the world's most
talented graffiti artists. While some critics took the film for what it was, others believed
it was a parody. Thierry Guetta, a filmmaker turned street artist
was the documentary's main subject, who commented on the commercialization of art. Some theorized
that he was just an actor paid by Banksy, while others theorized that he was Banksy himself.
In September of 2015, Banksy debuted his most elaborate and grand scaled project, Dismaland.
It acted as a parody of Disneyland where instead of keeping the magic, it was determined to strip
it away. It was a temporary amusement park and conceptual art show that took place in Western-
super-Mare, England. Wary and disinterested greeters wandered the attraction wearing pink vests that
read "dismal" across the back. It included work from other artists as well. Bill Barminski created a
fake security checkpoint made from cardboard. The park also hosted late night parties and concerts.
Banksy described it as a family attraction that acknowledges inequality and impending catastrophe...
wow. Banksy believed that attractions like Disneyland were in place to distract us
from the worldly issues that surround us like pollution and inequality. Thus,
he created Dismaland, which highlighted those issues instead of ignoring them.
The attraction was short-lived and closed down within five weeks.
Another grand scale project that Banksy created was The Walled Off Hotel. It was opened in 2017 in
Bethlehem. It was constructed next to the wall that separates Israel from the Palestinian territories,
and boasts that it has the worst view of any hotel in the world. The rooms are decorated with
work by Banksy himself, and has a gallery that exhibits works from many Palestinian artists.
In late 2018, Banksy pulled a stunt where one of his most popular murals, Girl with Balloon was
being sold as a canvas print. However, upon being sold for $1.4 million, the piece shredded itself.
While people speculated about the meaning and the auction house's involvement on social media,
Banksy posted a video taking credit for building the mechanism within the frame.
However, he also stated that it malfunctioned and was meant to destroy the piece entirely.
Banksy's authentication bureau Pest Control, created a certificate that
acknowledged the destroyed work was a new piece called Love is in the Bin.
The popularity of his work has led to multiple unauthorized exhibitions and reproductions. Artists
tend to rely on copyright laws to protect their works, but that requires disclosing an identity.
Banksy instead registered his name as a trademark in 2014, meaning that you could be charged for
using the word Banksy. It was later thrown out in 2020, saying it was made in bad faith.
In March of 2021, Banksy had his work burned publicly and sold as an NFT, or a non-fungible
token. Which is usually bought with cryptocurrency like bitcoin. The piece was meant to poke fun at
people who spend huge amounts of money on art. Banksy's pieces, despite his previous stunts still
gained very high selling prices at auctions. Devolved Parliament sold for approximately
$12.1 million in 2019, and Show me the Monet sold for almost $10 million in 2020. Some of his works
have been bought by Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, and Christina Aguilera. However because they're sold
through auctions, he doesn't get the money that they're sold for because he no longer owns them.
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