Banksy. - This is not a photo opportunity : the street art of Banksy

This Is Not a Photo Opportunity: The Street Art of Banksy

The author asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Copyright Martin Bull

This edition copyright 2015 PM Press

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-1-62963-036-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014908065

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Cover and interior design by briandesign, based on a design by Courtney Utt

PM Press

PO Box 23912

Oakland, CA 94623

www.pmpress.org

Printed in the USA

Welcome to this new PM Press book, which is a kind of greatest hits collection of much of Banksys street pieces in England over the last eighteen years. Think of it as an all-you-can-eat buffet where no one is watching how much you indulge your appetite, and feel free to let out an enormous burp after devouring your way thorough over 150 colour photos, split into ten themed sections.

Banksy rarely explains his work, although interviews and statements do occasionally shed some light on what thought processes he was going through when he created it. In general I prefer not to try to interpret and intellectualise the meanings of Banksys street work, but for this book, and for the first time ever, I really did have to try to categorise my personal collection of nine years of photographing Banksys street work into subjects and themes. I hope I have done a good job.

I have begun () where it all started of course, his hometown of Bristol, with some rare photos of his early street pieces from the late 1990s, mainly executed in freehand rather than the stencils he has since become famous for.

When he moved to London in 2000, he took with him his perfectionism, sharp mind, passion to succeed, and a genuinely talented artistic hand. Plus a sharp knife and some cardboard! This change to stencils was purely for maximum street effect, and not due to any artistic deficiency. Using the new stencils, he went on to develop two major themes: the humble and despised rat (

We then bound through six more superb sections, where I try to pick out themes in his work: modern life; politics, especially the surveillance culture; the art and graffiti world; society; playful Banksy (including his latest piece at the time of this writing, October 2014); followed by childlike Banksy works; and finally mysterious Banksy, those eclectic pieces that almost defy categorisation, including gorillas, monkeys, and Zorro. Naturally.

My books have been a long journey.

As a lad from picturesque but conservative Bath, a famous historic City in the West of England (one hundred miles from London), I naturally gravitated twelve miles further west to the exciting, creative, multicultural swamp they call Bristol.

). The word serendipity was surely invented for that moment.

However, the moment of that discovery still didnt get me Banksy hunting all over the country. It wasnt until over a year later in London that I was taking photos of various graffiti/street art/whatever you call it and was struck by just how prolific Banksy had become and how his quality stood out amongst his contemporaries. This magnetic allure of Banksy was still pulling at me, despite my protestations. I found more and more, gave and took location information, and then in mid-2006 linked many of them together and offered free tours in three different areas of the capital city. Usually less than ten people turned up, but on the fourth tour I suddenly had sixty to contend with; it was like a herd of sulky French teenage tourists in central Bath on a summers day! Those tours around Londons most arty streets were a first, although many imitators now offer tours for money.

After some poking and prodding to make the tours into a book, I pulled together all my infotour routes, location details, photographs, and interesting detritusand aided by a few wonderful new friends, especially Stef, and the old punk DIY ethos of doing everything ourselves, I self-published it in late 2006, whilst doing a dreary casual job at the postal service. Little did I know what I was letting myself in for. I seemed to have caught the surf of a Banksy wave, and before I knew it the book was selling everywhere and I was regularly updating and improving it. Four more UK editions later, plus two in the United States, and a Korean version that apparently also exists, it has also enabled me to donate 34,723 to charities through sales of the books and my related fundraising initiatives. It always felt particularly right to support people living on the streets via a book about art on those very same streets. And all this from an idea written on the back of the proverbial barroom napkin!

I carried on finding street pieces, or finding excuses to travel off to photograph the latest one found elsewhere. I think I was touched by the Train Spotter stick when I was born. The world would be a far better place though if there were more collectors and geeks. I cant remember the last time one of us was responsible for a military coup, famine, or intolerance. Just the odd bit of CIA computer hacking.

During these mini-adventures, it always felt slightly karmic how I may decide to go down a particular street that I have not been down for ages (or never been down), or to visit a certain area for no obvious reason, and then I find something Ive not seen before, and sometimes a piece that very few people had ever seen before. Or something might have taken me away from my original plana bus diversion, traffic problem, or talking to a random strangerand it was then that I found something. Maybe its just the law of averages, but it seemed to me that I found more than could be expected that way, and somehow I found things I never expected. Many years later I discovered the J.R.R. Tolkien quote Not all those who wander are lost and felt like it had been written just for me.

I have tried not to intellectualise Banksys street work. Im not sure why some people feel the need to endlessly debate street art and excessively venerate someone elses work as if it is so life-affirming. Graffiti (of whatever kindIm not getting into that debate here) is about action and physical enjoyment, not talk. I could probably cobble together an academic tome on the subject but it would be pointless, and demeaning to the real writers. Let the art speak for itself, or get the originator of these pieces (Banksy) to explain it; I cant really. At the end of the day its just a (very talented) grown man doing what he enjoys in life, including creeping around at night getting sweaty and dirty, all in the name of free art for the masses! How less intellectual can you get?

Every time I thought I had finished a majestic hardback Volume 2, a workaholic called Banksy went and did more. It was finally released in the UK in 2010, with PM Presss slim-line version for the U.S. market in 2011. And now, with this final book, something slightly different: Banksys street work in its naked glory, leaving you to your own thoughts, feelings, and maybe your own inspiration to help make the world a slightly less troubling place.

Everyone has to start somewhere.

For Banksy it was in the burgeoning 1990s free party, DIY (do it yourself), and alternative music scene in Bristol, a vibrant, creative, multicultural city in the West of England. Think of the music of Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky, Smith & Mighty, and Roni Size, and the art of 3D and Nick Walker. Even Damien Hirst comes from Bristol!

This section shows some of Banksys early work in Bristol, mainly in the late 1990s, before he left for London around the end of 2000. It is in a rough chronological order, and nearly all of it is freehand work, although some, like Visual Warfare (with Kato), suggest that the neat lines and organised nature of his work mean he was never really cut out to be an expansive traditional graffiti writer.