Reuters Outs Banksy and Makes the World Less Interesting | The American Spectator

Banksy, the heretofore anonymous street artist, brought his stencils and spray paint in 2022 to Ukraine to support the smaller country’s fight against a bigger bully. This effort led to Reuters this past weekend revealing the nom behind his plume.

“Once an annoyance to authorities who viewed him as a vandal, he has become a British national treasure,” the Reuters piece notes. “In one survey, Brits rated him more popular than Rembrandt and Monet. In another poll, his ‘Girl with Balloon’ painting was voted the favorite piece of artwork Britain has produced.”

This would seem a peculiar fate for a graffiti artist who relies on stencils, spray paint, and, occasionally, famous photographs as models for his work. But the guerrilla nature of his art — with even the production and sale of it occasionally expressing itself artistically as well — stokes public interest. So did his secrecy, which Banksy had maintained was a necessity because of the illegality of graffiti.

Even rubes who usually do not get art get Banksy.

More than two decades after Banksy created faux £10 notes with Princess Diana’s visage in place of Queen Elizabeth II’s and “Banksy of England” replacing “Bank of England,” they list on eBay for 100 times their ostensible face value. In 2018, he shockingly shredded his work upon sale at an auction; the buyer went through with the £1 million purchase — which sold a few years later in its altered state for £18.5 million. “Banksy didn’t destroy an artwork in the auction,” Southeby’s contended in marketing the partially shredded painting, “he created one.”

Robert Gunningham, whom The Daily Mail fingered as a possible Banksy nearly two decades ago, slyly changed his name to David Jones around that time. In other words, he employed a fake name to stand behind his fake name. But his trip to Ukraine, where records showed that a David Jones with the same birthdate as Robert Gunningham entered the country when Banksy did, revealed him to Reuters. So did a signed confession from Mr. Gunningham in response to an earlier New York City arrest for graffiti.

Who is Banksy?

His Bristol origins and remark, “If you don’t own a train company, then you go and paint on one instead,” that rationalized graffiti suggest a blue-collar background. Gunningham looks gray, fat, and older than his 51 years. He resembles the love-child of Steve Bannon and any matronly character with a high-pitched voice and a handkerchief head-covering played by Terry Jones.

Dorothy was not the last to feel a letdown in meeting that man behind the curtain. The empty feeling upon encountering the Reuters report is not because Gunningham lacks the flair of Salvador Dali (or of Banksy!). In an age when Google and AI tell us all the answers, the secret identity of Banksy felt like a reminder that the world still contains wonder and mystery. Reuters ruined all that the way someone screaming “Darth Vader is Luke’s father” at the back of the theater at the start of The Empire Strikes Back spoils it.

Please, Reuters, do not now solve the Jack the Ripper case or tell us the location of Amelia Earhart’s plane. Like good art, a good life leaves much for the imagination.

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Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.