Banksy

Banksy, or rather this is the pseudonym used by the British street artist, is an urban guerrilla armed with spray cans. No one knows his true identity. It is believed that he is named Robert Banks and that he was born in a town near Bristol in 1974. His interventions take place on the streets—graffiti, stencils, installations scattered on the walls of buildings, in parks—or stealthily in spaces dedicated to art and culture, such as MoMA, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Natural History, the British Museum in London, and Tate Britain Gallery in London. The artist, disguised in a raincoat, fake beard, and hat, places his canvases among the works of the museum's collection, evading surveillance. The clandestine paintings blend into the context in terms of themes and style, apart from some improbable details: a fake can of Warholian soup, a lady from another era with a gas mask on her face, an 18th-century nobleman holding a spray can, and a mutant beetle disguised as a bomber. Banksy's playful and sacrilegious action reveals a clear critical attitude towards museum institutions, symbols of the socio-economic system that positions art as a status symbol for a few privileged wealthy individuals. His fake canvases mingle with the real ones, creating a humorous short circuit within the heavily barricaded temples of official art. His sculptures are also extraordinary: satirical pieces mixing culture, politics, and ethics, such as those in the Iannaccone Collection: a Ballerina—“I fell in love with it,” says Iannaccone, “because, beyond the provocation, it is a song to the fatal purity contaminated by vulgarity”—and a rat with a wrinkled backpack (full of spray paint and stencils) and a backwards cap, holding a large brush smeared with pink paint: a clear self-portrait.