Banksy's paradox

Banksy is an artist full of contradictions…

Reflection about the world

Banksy is an artist full of contradictions and surprises. Driven by casualness and a strong need to shock people, he does not limit his work to the use of stencils and paint. If he has a message to convey, we will do it by all possible means! Thus, he has imagined a multitude of strategies to transmit his different messages and, illegally.

For example, in 2006, he replaced 500 copies of Paris Hilton’s CD in dozens of music stores in London. In the version that he developed, music was remixed by Danger Mouse and the titles were changed (Why Am I Famous? What have I done? What Am I For?) Then the cover was doctored. Indeed, we find a topless Paris Hilton on the cover. Even better, inside the CD case, there is the young woman with a dog’s head instead of her own head, going out of a luxury car and walking towards a group of homeless people. It is said that some copies were still sold at the time but none of them have been returned. We can today get a copy through the e-Bay website for a sum approaching £1000.

Following the same idea, Banksy placed the same year a full-size inflatable doll in Disneyland, California. This doll represented a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, wearing the famous orange suit. This masterstroke then draw him several obstacles, but his goal was achieved: to attract media attention to denounce the situation internationally. He was offered a few years earlier to create the CD cover of Blur group, called Think Tank, which he accepted with pleasure!

In order to get a sense of renewal, Bansky tried sculpture slightly by creating “the murdered phone booth” and developing an exhibition called “Buy one get one” which was about creating two identical sculptures, one of which is purchased by the public and the other given to the municipality.

The artist has even violated law repeatedly, by going gradually to the biggest museums in New York, Paris and London in order to show his artworks by himself. Thus, he managed to show his version of the Mona Lisa with a smiley face, a painting on stone representing a prehistoric man pushing a shopping cart or his version of the tomato soup previously painted by Warhol.

Some British organizations, however, want the artist’s head. This is the case of “Keep Britain tidy”. Its main representatives denounce the work of Banksy, on the pretext that he simply glorifies the art of vandalism, and he encourages people to do the same. It is that they do not understand anything. The entire work of the artist is a huge reflection of the world, a race to freedom of expression, so hard to find fully whatever one may think. He does not destroy private property; he embellishes it with his hopes, fears, goals, anxieties, and dreams.

“Art terrorist” knows exactly what to do to attract attention and that is why people love it!