Research: Banksy

In class this week we started watching a movie called Exit Through Thee Gift Shop about a street artist named Banksy. He is an anonymous artist and nobody knows who he is or what he looks like. His ideas are so creative and he has such a different concept of art than the average artists out there. After watching part of the movie it made me want to learn more about Banksy and see what he is doing now.

His graffiti career started in 1990 when he joined a group called DryBreadZ Crew (DBZ). While with them he focused mostly in stenciling and perfecting that technique. The message of his art was mostly anti-war, anti-establishment and anti-capitalist. To portray these messages he often used images of rats, apes, soldiers, police officers, children and the elderly.

In 2002, he began hosting exhibitions for people to come and view his artwork. Banksy's first ever show was in Los Angeles and one of the biggest controversy of this show was the fact that he painted on an elephant. Even though the paint was harmless, animal rights group everywhere were outraged. Today his work is appreciated much more and is sold for hundreds or thousands of dollars at art auctions across the world. One of his latest pieces of art had to do with the 2012 summer Olympics in London. He posted pictures online of a javelin thrower lobbing a missile and a pole vaulter soaring over a barbed-wire fence. The mysterious part of it all is that the art is painted somewhere in London, waiting to be found.