Banksy is a pseudonymous British graffiti artist whose true identity is unknown. He was born in 1974 in Bristol, England and began doing graffiti in the late 1980s. Banksy's street art often includes satirical pieces that comment on politics, culture, and ethics. He is known for using stencils and distinctive graffiti style and has done art around the world.

1. Who is Banksy?

2. • Banksy is a pseudonym of a British graffiti
artist.
• He is believed to be a native of Yate,
South Gloucestershire, near Bristol and to
have been born in 1974, but his identity is
unknown. According to Tristan Manco,
Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in
Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier
technician, he trained as a butcher but
became involved in graffiti during the great
Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s."

3. • His artworks are often satirical pieces of
art on topics such as politics, culture, and
ethics. His street art combines graffiti
writing with a distinctive stenciling
technique.
• His art has appeared in cities around the
world.
• Banksy does not sell photos of street
graffiti.

4. • Art auctioneers have been known to
attempt to sell his street art on location
and leave the problem of its removal in the
hands of the winning bidder.
• Banksy's first film, Exit Through The Gift
Shop, billed as "the world's first street art
disaster movie", made its debut at the
2010 Sundance Film Festival. The film
was released in the UK on March 5.
http://www.youtube.com/user/banksyfilm#p/a/u

5. • Banksy started as a freehand graffiti artist 1992–
1994.
• He was inspired by local artists and his work
was part of the larger Bristol underground scene.
• From the start he used stencils as elements of
his freehand pieces, too. By 2000 he had turned
to the art of stenciling after realizing how much
less time it took to complete a piece. He claims
he changed to stenciling whilst he was hiding
from the police under a train carriage, when he
noticed the stenciled serial number and by
employing this technique, he soon became more
widely noticed for his art around Bristol and
London.

6. • Banksy's stencils feature striking and
humorous images occasionally combined
with slogans. The message is usually anti-
war, anti-capitalist or anti-establishment.
Subjects include rats, monkeys,
policemen, soldiers, children, and the
elderly.

7. • In August 2004, Banksy produced a
quantity of spoof British £10 notes
substituting the picture of the Queen's
head with Princess Diana's head and
changing the text "Bank of England" to
"Banksy of England." Someone threw a
large wad of these into a crowd at Notting
Hill Carnival that year, which some
recipients then tried to spend in local
shops.

9. • At London Zoo, he climbed into the
penguin enclosure and painted "We're
bored of fish" in seven foot high letters.
• Graffiti depicting graffiti removal. Created
in May 2008 at Leake Street in London,
painted over by August 2008. Notice the
animals resembling cave art from Lascaux
or Altamira.

11. • At Bristol Zoo, he left the message 'I want
out. This place is too cold. Keeper smells.
Boring, boring, boring.' in the elephant
enclosure.
• In May 2005 Banksy's version of a
primitive cave painting depicting a human
figure hunting wildlife whilst pushing a
shopping trolley was hung in gallery 49 of
the British Museum, London. Upon
discovery, they added it to their permanent
collection.

12. • Banksy has sprayed "This is not a photo
opportunity" on certain photograph spots.
• In August 2005, Banksy painted nine
images on the Israeli West Bank barrier,
including an image of a ladder going up
and over the wall and an image of children
digging a hole through the wall.

14. • In April 2006, Banksy created a sculpture
based on a crumpled red phone box with a
pickaxe in its side, apparently bleeding,
and placed it in a street in Soho, London.
It was later removed by Westminster
Council. BT released a press release,
which said: "This is a stunning visual
comment on BT's transformation from an
old-fashioned telecommunications
company into a modern communications
services provider."

16. • In June 2006, Banksy created an image of
a naked man hanging out of a bedroom
window on a wall visible from Park Street
in central Bristol. The image sparked
some controversy, with the Bristol City
Council leaving it up to the public to
decide whether it should stay or go. After
an internet discussion in which 97% (all
but 6 people) supported the stencil, the
city council decided it would be left on the
building. The mural was later defaced with
paint.

18. • In August/September 2006, Banksy replaced up to 500
copies of Paris Hilton's debut CD, Paris, in 48 different
UK record stores with his own cover art and remixes by
Danger Mouse. Music tracks were given titles such as
"Why am I Famous?", "What Have I Done?" and "What
Am I For?". Several copies of the CD were purchased by
the public before stores were able to remove them, some
going on to be sold for as much as £750 on online
auction websites such as eBay. The cover art depicted
Paris Hilton digitally altered to appear topless. Other
pictures feature her with a dog's head replacing her own,
and one of her stepping out of a luxury car, edited to
include a group of homeless people, which included the
caption "90% of success is just showing up".

20. • In September 2006, Banksy dressed an
inflatable doll in the manner of a
Guantanamo Bay detainment camp
prisoner (orange jumpsuit, black hood,
and handcuffs) and then placed the figure
within the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
ride at the Disneyland theme park in
Anaheim, California.