Who is Banksy? Everything we know about the anonymous artist |BBC news | BBC breaking news |BBC London | CNN news | CNN live news | CNN | BBC live news
Who is Banksy? Everything we know about the anonymous artist #BBC news #BBCbreakingnews#bBClondon #CNNnews #CNNlivenews #CNN #BBClivenews
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00:00He's one of the world's most famous artists, but despite his global following,
00:04his identity remains, officially at least, unknown. Often described as
00:10elusive and secretive by the press, the Gorilla Street artist counts A-list celebrities,
00:17such as actor Brad Pitt, among his fans and collectors. A hero to some, a vandal to others,
00:23his artworks sell for eye-watering sums, with councils and landowners rushing to profit from,
00:29or whitewash, buildings chosen as his latest canvas. And yet, the self-styled prankster and
00:35anti-establishment figure has consistently managed to remain anonymous. So what do we
00:41actually know about him? Banksy rose to prominence after he began spray-painting his now-trademark
00:47stenciled designs around Bristol in the early 1990s. The city's influential music and arts scene,
00:54home of bands such as Massive Attack and Portishead, is said to have inspired his work.
01:00Banksy himself is believed to have been born in the nearby town of Yate, in South Gloucestershire,
01:05in the early 1970s. His first large stencil mural, The Mild Mild West, which depicts a teddy bear
01:13throwing a Molotov cocktail at three riot police, was painted in the Stokes Croft area of Bristol in
01:191999. In the early 2000s, he moved to London and continued to attract attention with his satirical
01:26street art. By the mid-2000s, Banksy was becoming a celebrity himself, albeit an anonymous one.
01:34Simultaneously, his works became more ambitious, popping up in cities all over the world.
01:40The appearance of a new Banksy soon started to become a media event.
01:45His mythical status as the masked artist poking fun at authority brought him,
01:49or at least his brand, international recognition. Exhibitions of his work,
01:55in cities including Los Angeles and London, became sellout events. His often politically
02:01charged works began to sell for huge amounts of money, with customers including Pitt,
02:06Paul Smith and Christina Aguilera. In 2009, his Banksy v Bristol Museum show drew enormous crowds.
02:15Sticking to his roots, in 2015, his Dismaland exhibition took over a derelict seafront Lido
02:21in Weston-super-Mare. A 2010 documentary film Exit Through the Gift Shop, showing Banksy at work,
02:28was nominated for an Academy Award and a BAFTA. And in 2018, in a highly theatrical piece of
02:35performance art, the artist staged a live destruction of his stencil girl with balloon
02:40at Sotheby's auction house, moments after it was sold for £1 million.