The Art Evolution of Banksy

“Speak softly, but carry a big can of paint.” ― Banksy in his book Wall and Piece

This month, New York is buzzing with talk of Banksy. The anonymous street artist is currently staging a residency in the city called "Better Out Than In," where he puts up a new piece every day. The stunt has led to a Banksy craze in the form of a scavenger hunt to find the graffiti, followed by its inevitable destruction within the same day. Just yesterday, the world may have been as close as they have ever come to catching the elusive street artist.

But despite his popularity, not much is known about the infamous Banksy. He has maintained a cloak of anonymity since his start as a graffiti writer in the 1990s. His clever, politically-charged works are meant to shock and awe, and we have come to expect them to do just that, but Banksy hasn't always been political. His earlier graffiti writing was very different from his stencils today, and since he took to the streets, Banksy, along with Shepard Fairey, Invader, and so many others, is one of the reasons street art has grown in popularity. As The Wooster Collective puts it, "Shepard Fairey created the movement... Banksy created the market." Catch up with Banksy's Art Evolution and find out what the hype is really about.

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Date: 1990-1994
Notable works: Unknown

According to Tristan Manco in his book Home Sweet Home, Banksy was born in 1974 in Bristol, England. He started out as a freehand graffiti artist for Bristol's DryBreadZ Crew (DBZ) along with two other members of the crew, Kato and Tes. His inspiration stemmed from local artists, and his work was part of the larger Bristol underground street art and hip-hop scene.

Little is known about the mysterious artist's youth, and even those who raised him don't know his true identity. According to Banksy in a rare 2003 interview with The Guardian, his parents think he is a "painter and decorator."

By 1999, Bristol, England had become far too small for Banksy. He was already turning into an English street art sensation, and decision to head to London was paralleled by his decision to aim for anonymity. He hid his identity so the police would have a harder time catching him if they had no clue who he was. After all, much of his work was and remains illegal. As Banksy's signature stencils became unmistakable, people were more and more intrigued about the unknown artist. His obscured identity only helped create buzz around his art.

Date: 2000-2001
Notable works: Gorilla in a Pink Mask, Simple Intelligence Testing, Space Girl and Bird, Insane Clown, Mona Lisa with AK47

“As soon as I cut my first stencil I could feel the power there. I also like the political edge. All graffiti is low-level dissent, but stencils have an extra history. They’ve been used to start revolutions and to stop wars.” -Banky, as recorded by Tristan Manco in his book Stencil Graffiti

Banksy officially became Banksy when he started using stencils, and he understood that street art was all about repetition, efficiency, and quality. He used stencils to produce his works on a larger scale all over Bristol and London. In Banksy's book, Wall and Piece, the street artist claims that his idea to use stencils came to him when he was hiding from the police under a garbage truck and saw a stenciled serial number. Since then, Banksy has used stencils to create a huge body of street art without being caught.

Banksy had his first London exhibition in 2001. It was held Rivington Street, when him and another artists took over a tunnel. According to the Smithsonian Magazine, he wrote that, they “hung up some decorators’ signs nicked off a building site, and painted the walls white wearing overalls. We got the artwork up in 25 minutes and held an opening party later that week with beers and some hip-hop pumping out of the back of a Transit van. About 500 people turned up to an opening which had cost almost nothing to set up.” This makeshift exhibition, is exactly what we would expect from Banksy. After all, this is the man who once stated when asked about his anonymity "I am unable to comment on who may or may not be Banksy, but anyone described as being 'good at drawing' doesn't sound like Banksy to me."

Date: 2002
Notable works: Girl with Red Balloon, Bird with Grenade, Queen Victoria, Laugh Now, Flower Chucker and Leopard and Barcode

In 2002, Banksy had his first LA show titled "Existencilism." It's a common misconception that his 2006 show, "Barely Legal," was his first LA exhibition, but this is not the case. "Existencilism" debuted in June at Frank Sosa's 33⅓ Gallery. During this time, Banksy put up a lot of his most iconic works.

Date: 2002
Notable works: Pulp Fiction, Ozone's Angel

Pulp Fiction is a piece that has a very interesting history. The first time Banksy put it up, the piece had the two main characters of the film pointing bananas instead of guns. Transport for London painted over it because it was "painted in an atmosphere of social decay."

Later, Banksy came back to the site and painted the two characters pointing real guns but dressed in banana suits. This new piece was painted over by graffiti artist Ozone who said at the time, "If it's better next time, I'll leave it" in the bottom corner. A train later tragically killed Ozone, who was merely 19 years old. Banksy paid tribute to Ozone with a piece painted on that same spot of an angel wearing a bulletproof vest, holding a skull. On his website, Banksy wrote, "When we lost Ozone, we lost a fearless graffiti writer and as it turns out, a pretty perceptive art critic. Ozone—rest in peace."

Date: 2003
Notable works: Street Maid, Think Tank, Untitled (Happy Coppers), Parachuting Rat

From July 18-21, 2003, Banksy hosted an exhibition in a London warehouse called "Turf War." At the time, many people were just starting to jump on the Banksy bandwagon and hadn't quite grasped his personality yet. This exhibition featured painted live animals, and as could be expected, many animal rights groups were up in arms about the show. One activist even chained herself to the railings of the warehouse.

If his recent piece for the New York residency "Sirens of the Lambs" is a sign, Banksy takes animal rights to heart. The RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) deemed the conditions of the animals fair after the exhibition.

Date: 2003
Notable works: The Manifesto

2003 was also the year that Banksy put his manifesto up on his website. Usually an artist's manifesto outlines the artist's creed, his philosophy for creating art. But one thing we know about Banksy is that he is never traditional. Banksy posted his "manifesto" on a page on his website, and almost every year he changed the text of it. Mostly, Banky's manifestos involved provacative quotes. His first few manifestos involved stories from Holocaust, but in time they became a more random assortment of historical quotations. Read the full text of Banky's first manifesto here.

Date: 2004-2006
Notable works: British £10 notes, Well Hung Lovers, Street Maids, Sale Ends Today, Kissing Policemen

Up until this point, most of Banksy's works were certainly provocative. But around 2004, Banksy started getting overtly political. His pieces boasted anti-war, anti-capitalist, or anti-establishment sentiments, and he challenged British society to think critically about social issues. One of his works during this time involved creating British £10 notes where he replaced the image of the Queen of England with Princess Diana and the words "Bank of England" with "Banksy of England." The notes were intended to commemorate Princess Diana's death but instead were sometimes used fraudulently. Banksy eventually axed the project, and his documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop includes footage showing his confusion with what to do with all the extra bills.

Date: 2005
Notable works: Balloon Debate, Unwelcome Intervention, Escapism, Sea View, Window on the West Bank, Art Attack, and Cut it Out

During Banksy's political awakening, he decided he had to go big or go home. He headed straight into the heart of one of the world's most contentious areas and took on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Banksy painted nine pieces on the Palestine side of the West Bank barrier wall. The Guardian reported at the time that Banksy had guns aimed at him as he put these pieces up. In a statement about the project, Banksy declared, "The Israeli government is building a wall surrounding the occupied Palestinian territories. It stands three times the height of the Berlin Wall and will eventually run for over 700km - the distance from London to Zurich. The wall is illegal under international law and essentially turns Palestine into the world's largest open prison." But he continued, "It also makes it the ultimate activity holiday destination for graffiti writers."

Date: 2005
Notable works: The Rude Lord, Vandalised Phone Box

2005 is also the year that Banksy himself carried his own pieces into notable museums and hung them among the other artworks without the guards noticing. The museums he conquered in New York were the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History. He also infiltrated many British museums with his designs. This same year, Banksy published a compilation of his works in a book calledWall and Piece.

Date: 2006
Notable works: Elephant in the Room, Bullet Proof Vest (David), Pie Face, Warning Sign

Banksy held this "three-day vandalized warehouse extravaganza," as it was billed, in Los Angeles, from Sept. 15 to 17, 2006. "Barely Legal" was hosted not in a gallery but in an industrial warehouse. The most talked about piece at the exhibit was the live elephant that Banksy placed in the center of the room. He painted the animal red and detailed it with gold fleurs-de-lis to match the brocade wallpaper. He then dared viewers not to talk about it, which was evidently unsuccessful. The "elephant in the room" was the only live animal at the show, but there was also many sculptures and canvas versions of Banksy's stencils. There was even a series of framed paintings just like the ones that Banksy covertly put up in museums the previous year. Jude Law, Brad Pitt, and Angelina Jolie were among some of the most notable Hollywood celebrities in attendance.

Date: 2007-2008
Notable works: Girl Searching Soldier, Armoured Dove, Umbrella Girl, Keeping It Spotless (collaboration with Damien Hirst), Swinger, Ruined Landscape

Banksy decided to use his popularity for good and ended up going right into the heart of disaster, again. He went back to the West Bank and put up more pieces, and he also went to New Orleans to a building that still hadn't been restored from Hurricane Katrina. Anchor and Royal Correspondent for CNN International Max Foster coined the phrase "the Banksy effect" to illustrate how Banksy was catalyzing public interest in street art.

Around 2005, his works started selling at very high prices. By 2007, the price of a Banksy was astronomical. His piece Bombing Middle England sold for roughly $16,000 at the Sotheby's auction in London in Feb. 2007. Banksy responded to this by posting on his website, "I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit." During this time Banksy collaborated with Damien Hirst on a piece that would ironically end up being his highest selling work of all time.

Date: 2008
Notable works: The Cans Festival Tunnel

In May 2008, Banksy invited 39 artists from around the world to paint a road tunnel in London. Some of these artists included Sten Lex, Bsas Stencil, Prism, Roadsworth, Blek le Rat, C215, Dotmasters, Hero, Sadhu, Lucamaleonte, Faile, Logan Hicks, Btoy, Vhils, Vexta, and John Grider. Naming the event as a play on the Cannes Film Festival in France, Banksy turned this tunnel space into a free-for-all painting zone. It is still open to all artists, as long as they are respectful of the other artists' work.

Date: 2009
Notable works: Burnt Out Ice Cream Truck, Home Sweet Home

This official exhibition was Banksy's biggest exhibition to date. It featured over 100 pieces, 78 of which were new. The show included animatronics and installations. Many of the painted pieces were beautiful replicas of traditional art with a modern twist.

Banksy also wandered through the museum and changed things. For example, he gave a mouse in the natural history department glasses and a scarf. Over 8,500 people visited the show on the first weekend, and the reactions were mostly positive. The show took place at Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery and had over 300,000 visits over the course of 12 weeks. The show, needless to say, helped the local economy greatly. But Banksy himself asked to be paid only £1 for the show.

Date: 2009
Notable works: Pest Control

At this point, Banksy's pieces were becoming so valuable that there were a lot of copycats. Obviously, Banksy's anonymity made this even easier to pull off. To prevent knock-offs and help people distinguish the real Banksy pieces, Banksy created a group called Pest Control. This group of experts can certify a real Banksy and know immediately if it's a knock off. They are also the only authorized sellers for new works.

Date: 2010
Notable works: Child Labor, Hackney Welcomes the Olympics, Going for Mould, Olympic Rings

Banksy put these Olympics themed pieces up around London as the Games were approaching. There was a big controversy over the piece Child Labor. Preceding the Olympics, the police were arresting and preventing street artists from coming near the new arena.

After the Games, Banksy's work Child Labor went missing and then mysteriously appeared again in a Miami action. The sale of this piece got the public buzzing about whether or not street art should be sold or if it belongs on the streets where it was created, so much so that the work was pulled from the auction. Later, it sold for $1.1 million.

Date: 2010
Notable works: Dog Urinating on a Wall, Charlie Brown Starting a Fire

Though Banksy did not win the Oscar, he did win something big that year. Time Magazine selected Banksy for its list of the World’s 100 Most Influential People. President Barack Obama, Steve Jobs and Lady Gaga were also on this list, and Banksyfound himself among the world's most prestigious group of people. The photo he supplied was of him with a face painted on the brown paper bag covering his face. Shepard Fairey wrote the article about Banksy to accompany the photo. Fairey is not only a friend of Banksy and an equally talented street artist, but also the man behind the 2008 Obama Hope poster. It was one of the best summations of Banksy's career and ideals to date. In the article, Fairey stated that Banksy "has a gift: an ability to make almost anyone very uncomfortable. He doesn't ignore boundaries; he crosses them to prove their irrelevance."

Date: 2010
Notable works: Exit Through the Gift Shop

A lesser-known fact about this documentary is that its premiere was actually in the Cans Festival tunnel, although the public premiere was at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. Banksy accompanied the release with 10 pieces around Park City and Salt Lake City. Banksy's documentary grossed $3,290,582 at the box office and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Banksy, staying true to form, responded to the nomination with a statement that said, "This is a big surprise...I don't agree with the concept of award ceremonies, but I'm prepared to make an exception for the ones I'm nominated for. The last time there was a naked man covered in gold paint in my house, it was me."

Exit Through the Gift Shop did not win the Oscar, unfortunately. In early March 2011, Banksy showed how he felt about that with a piece in Weston, UK, of a little girl holding the Oscar and pouting.

Date: 2011
Notable works: Cardinal Sin, Smoking "Tesco Value" Petrol Bomb

A decade after Banksy started stenciling, he began broadening his horizons to make lithographic prints. Lithography is commonly used for the mass production of images. Recently, Banksy used this technique with a Tesco Value bottle that looked like a bomb, speaking out against having a Tesco in his hometown. Many other artists have picked up the protest as well.

Date: 2013
Notable works: Concrete Confessional, Sirens of the Lambs, The Street is in Play

Banksy is currently staging an artist's residency in New York called "Better Out Than In," where he produces a new piece somewhere in New York City each day. This is supposed to last for a month, and you can keep track of his pieces on his Instagram where he posts them first. His works in New York have been created via many different mediums. He's driven around two trucks, one with a mobile waterfall and the other with a lot of stuffed animals sticking out of a crated structure. He also has put up stencils and spray paint. Banksy even released a cryptic YouTube video with rebels shooting and hurting Dumbo the cartoon elephant. Considering his wide range of pieces, New Yorkers haven't been as hospitable to Banksy as you would think. Many of his pieces have been covered up or damaged within hours of being put up.

Yesterday, Banksy's New York residency almost got him caught. A Twitter user claimed he found Banksy's warehouse in Red Hook, Brooklyn and posted images of Banksy's Sirens of the Lambs surrounded by men, one of which he believed to be the infamous graffiti artist. We still have yet to confirm if Banksy has indeed been found.