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[film reel whirring]

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Downloaded from
YTS.MX

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Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

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[intriguing music]

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[tools whirring]

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[Narrator] In October 2018,
the anonymous street artist

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known as Banksy published
this video online.

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In it, he can be seen
preparing a custom frame

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for his painting,
Girl with Balloon.

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The painting is about to be
offered for sale at Sotheby's,

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one of the world's most
exclusive auction houses.

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[dramatic music]

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I have $30,000 dollars.

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Have we got 32,000?

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The event was a
typical art auction.

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Banksy's lot was the
last lot of the evening.

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The piece sold for
over a million US.

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Last chance at 850,000 pounds.

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The gavel came down,
sold, gone, sold.

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Selling for 860,000.
[bangs gavel]

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As the hammer struck,

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the work started to
fall through the frame.

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-[commotion]
-[beeping]

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And as it did, it shredded.

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And everybody witnessed in
horror as it was destroyed.

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I was like [inaudible]

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[grunts]

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Street artist Banksy pulled off

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one of the greatest pranks in
the history of the art world.

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It caused a huge stir.

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I mean, nothing like
that had ever happened.

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[speaking in foreign language]

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That stunt has already
increased the value

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of that painting
up to $7 million.

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It plays on people's
fears and emotions

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and what true value is.

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Where do we place
value in society?

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Who does art belong to?

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He created an art history moment

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and wrote himself again
into the history books.

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[rock music]

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[curious music]

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[Narrator] The stunt atSotheby's wasn't the first time

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that Banksy had ambushed
one of the august

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institutions of the art world.

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15 years earlier, in
the winter of 2003,

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a mysterious figure
entered Tate Britain,

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one of the UK's most
prestigious art museums

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and placed a
painting on the wall.

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Over the following 18 months,
fake exhibits appeared

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in London's Natural History
Museum, the Louvre in Paris,

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and the Museum of
Modern Art in New York,

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all covertly installed by
the same anonymous stranger.

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He went through seven
different galleries,

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putting seven different works
of art up in these galleries.

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The one in the
Metropolitan Museum of Art

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only lasted two hours,
which was understandable,

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because it was a painting of
a rather posh-looking lady.

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She had a gas mask on, and
that was spotted very quickly.

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But the one in
the Museum of Art,

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that lasted for several days,

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because it was a painting
of a Tesco can of soup,

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and it looked just like
the Warhol cans of soup,

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and no one noticed it.

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It was a daring thing to do.

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He did it, he got away with it,

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and everyone suddenly
knew his name.

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[Narrator] But a name
was all the public had.

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Everything else
remained a mystery.

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Who was the secretive
artist that had evaded

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some of the world's
tightest security

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to hang his own work
alongside that of Monet,

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Picasso, and Warhol?

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Was he just one person?

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Or was Banksy a group of people?

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Was he hiding his identity
because he was already famous,

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someone known to the public,
perhaps a musician or actor?

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The stunts themselves
contained clues.

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Banksy had launched anaudacious game of cat and mouse.

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At the Tate, he
had risked arrest

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to bring his art to the public.

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In the Met, his piece had been
quickly removed by curators

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who were sure that it
didn't belong in a gallery.

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And at Sotheby's, Banksy had
performed an act of vandalism.

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And it was with vandalism
that it had all started.

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[loud banging]

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[energetic hip hop music]

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[Voice Actor] Graffiti hasbeen used to start revolutions,

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start wars, and
generally is the voice

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of the people who
aren't listened to.

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Graffiti is one of
the few tools you have

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if you have almost nothing.

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And even if you don't
come up with a picture

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to cure world
poverty, you can make

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someone smile when
they're having a piss.

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Graffiti isn't an art form.

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Graffiti is a reaction,

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an impulse,

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is like a spark.

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Dynamic, explosive,
unpredictable.

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Some people say
graffiti ruined my life

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and some people say
graffiti saved my life.

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A rush.

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It's an addiction.

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The rush, I think, is sort
of a consequence of it all.

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You're scared, and
your blood is pumping,

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and your adrenaline is pumping.

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But really you're doing
it for the recognition

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and not the rush.

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Running round a city
and getting your name up

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in as many places
as you possible can.

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The more risky, the better.

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You want your name as big
as possible in lights.

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It's fucking ridiculous,
but. [chuckles]

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Graffiti is always the
heartbeat of society.

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It captures what's going on
at that time, in that moment.

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For every Banksy that's
on top and is visible,

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you've got hundreds that may
be underground and invisible.

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[train clacking]

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[upbeat hip hop music]

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Graffiti emerged in Philadelphia

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and then New York in the
late '60s and early '70s.

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The city was in
quote/unquote crisis.

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It was a city that
didn't have much revenue.

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There was a lot of crime,

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there was a lot of
drugs, a lot of poverty.

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Graffiti writing
started in neighborhoods

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like the Upper West Side
of Manhattan, the Bronx,

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Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn,
and it was a movement

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started by young kids that
were writing their names

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with their street numbers
on the walls around town

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to get recognized in some way.

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Sort of a game of tag.

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You're actually putting
your name on a place

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and sort of putting it
more and more and more

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and exposing yourself more,

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and then someone
else is coming in,

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following you and
doing the same thing.

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The game exploded
when kids decided

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to leave their streets
and go to the next street

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and the next street
and the next street

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and the next neighborhood and
the neighborhood after that.

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And it became hugely popular.

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The taller and wider
people sprayed their names,

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then somebody came up
with the bright idea

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of putting a second
color round their name.

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And before you know
it, the stick letters

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of small names on
the back of bus seats

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had turned into
seven-foot-high letters

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on the side of subway trains.

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And so then it really exploded
and became an art movement.

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[upbeat hip hop music]

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[Narrator] Painting, or bombing,New York's subways system

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soon became the primary focus
for young graffiti writers

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obsessed with having their nameseen as widely as possible.

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The nascent art movement
developed its own grammar,

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rules, and culture,
all based around

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rendering letter
forms, from the tag,

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a signature scrawled quicklywith a spray can or marker pen,

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all the way up to the
piece, a large-scale,

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stylized depiction
of the artist's name.

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In 1983, the public was
given its first glimpse

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inside the graffiti
underground, with Tony Silver

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and Henry Chalfant's
landmark film "Style Wars".

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For many, Style Wars
depicted a strange, criminal,

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and dangerous subculture.

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But for others, it proved
to be an inspiration.

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It was a new universe
that was being showcased.

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And it was like, "Oh my god,
I gotta get a piece of this."

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It became a guidebook
for many people.

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You know, where it was like

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this is how it's
supposed to be done.

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[curious music]

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[Graffiti Artist] People
don't know what I look like

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until now, until they
start going to the movies.

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They're gonna see my face.

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Big deal.

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Traveling round a city on
transport, and just like,

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"There's my tag, there's
my tag, there's my tag."

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It makes you feel
like you own the city.

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It's like, when
you paint a train

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and you see your train
running, you know,

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just the terminology:
I saw my train running.

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It isn't a train that
somebody catches to work,

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this is my train with my
name on it, and it's running.

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Graffiti gives this
young individual

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some kind of ownership
when they have nothing.

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It's a matter of bombing,
knowing that I can do it.

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Every time I get in the
train, almost every day

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I see my name, and I said,
"Yeah, you know what,

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"I was there, I bombed it."

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It's for me, it's not
for nobody else to see.

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I don't care about
nobody else seeing it

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or the face if they
can read it or not.

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It's for me and other graffiti
writers that we can read it.

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All these other people who
don't right, they're excluded.

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I don't care about them.

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They don't matter to me.

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[police siren chirping]

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[Narrator] But young
writers soon found

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that the pursuit of their art

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meant facing the full
wrath of the law.

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As complaints from
the public increased,

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New York's civil authorities
announced a war on graffiti,

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described the
artists as outlaws,

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and linked the prevalence
of tags to an upsurge

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in other, more serious
forms of crime.

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00:11:54,610 --> 00:11:55,956
I think it's the
most disgusting thing

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that New York City has.

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This station was
just recently painted

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00:11:58,959 --> 00:12:01,237
a couple of weeks ago,
and they seem to know

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when you're gonna paint
the station, and that night

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00:12:03,377 --> 00:12:05,517
the station will be, end
up almost just like this.

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[Reporter] Graffiti
in New York has become

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a deep-rooted social problem

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00:12:09,107 --> 00:12:10,902
that has bubbled up
from the underground

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00:12:10,937 --> 00:12:15,873
to consume public buildings,
road signs, bus shelters,

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00:12:15,907 --> 00:12:18,772
and, what's even more
disturbing, people's homes.

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00:12:18,807 --> 00:12:21,741
It's just a general
and pervasive lack

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of consideration
for other people.

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00:12:23,190 --> 00:12:24,571
I think that's the bottom line.

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-I think graffiti's--
-To us, it's art.

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00:12:26,193 --> 00:12:28,195
-What?
-To us, it's art, you know?

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It's not a crime, but, you know,

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00:12:29,818 --> 00:12:31,647
if the government give
us some right to do,

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00:12:31,681 --> 00:12:33,269
we could make it look nice,
you know what I'm sayin'?

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[Interviewee] Like for example,

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say you lived in this building.

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[Teenager] Yeah, but.

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You don't live in this building.

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You're comin' into your house,

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you're drawing on
this guy's house.

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This argument that
graffiti is bad

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00:12:45,454 --> 00:12:48,457
and that graffiti should
be treated as a blight

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00:12:48,491 --> 00:12:52,081
and that it should
be treated as a crime

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became more the
accepted point of view.

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The legal argument did actuallyhijack the art discussion.

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[Narrator] It was an approach
that has come to define

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00:13:03,058 --> 00:13:05,646
the relationship
between street artists

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00:13:05,681 --> 00:13:09,098
and authority ever since
and would ultimately become

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00:13:09,133 --> 00:13:11,204
a central theme
in Banksy's work.

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00:13:12,274 --> 00:13:14,241
Battle lines were drawn,

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00:13:14,276 --> 00:13:15,829
and the artists were
permanently cast

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00:13:15,864 --> 00:13:18,004
as belonging to the
criminal underground.

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[Reporter] Mayor Ed Koch
signed a law a few weeks ago

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00:13:22,871 --> 00:13:25,839
that makes it illegal for a
merchant to sell spray paint

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00:13:25,874 --> 00:13:28,462
or broad-tipped
markers to minors.

248
00:13:28,497 --> 00:13:30,154
But graffiti writers
for the most part

249
00:13:30,188 --> 00:13:33,157
don't buy their
paint; they steal it.

250
00:13:33,191 --> 00:13:34,986
Ski One, who writes
in Upper Manhattan,

251
00:13:35,021 --> 00:13:36,954
says that, while
a friend distracts

252
00:13:36,988 --> 00:13:39,508
the storekeeper, he fills a bag.

253
00:13:39,542 --> 00:13:42,166
You say some kind of can
that they don't have,

254
00:13:42,200 --> 00:13:43,857
it could be hard for
them to look for it.

255
00:13:43,892 --> 00:13:45,203
By the time they look for it,

256
00:13:45,238 --> 00:13:47,861
I'll have 250 cans, 300 hundred.

257
00:13:47,896 --> 00:13:49,690
-In your duffel bag?
-Yeah.

258
00:13:49,725 --> 00:13:51,934
[delicate music]

259
00:13:51,969 --> 00:13:56,974
It could ruin your career, yourfamily, your relationships.

260
00:13:57,871 --> 00:13:59,873
If you decide to be
that kind of a person,

261
00:13:59,908 --> 00:14:01,599
that kind of an
artist, you have to be

262
00:14:01,633 --> 00:14:03,428
well aware of
those consequences.

263
00:14:03,670 --> 00:14:04,705
You want your work to be seen

264
00:14:04,740 --> 00:14:06,500
by as many people as possible.

265
00:14:06,535 --> 00:14:10,125
But conversely, you want to
stay as anonymous as possible.

266
00:14:13,887 --> 00:14:15,268
[upbeat electronic music]

267
00:14:15,302 --> 00:14:17,304
[Narrator] Graffiti
was only one part

268
00:14:17,339 --> 00:14:19,306
of the broader youth
culture that emerged

269
00:14:19,341 --> 00:14:21,067
from New York in
the '70s and '80s.

270
00:14:22,275 --> 00:14:24,484
Although it had
developed independently,

271
00:14:24,518 --> 00:14:27,176
the art for becameinseparabley linked to hip hop,

272
00:14:27,211 --> 00:14:31,008
a new type of music and
dance that, like graffiti,

273
00:14:31,042 --> 00:14:33,286
was an improvised, DIY scene

274
00:14:33,320 --> 00:14:36,185
born of the same desolate
urban landscapes:

275
00:14:36,220 --> 00:14:38,774
The Bronx, Manhattan,
and Brooklyn.

276
00:14:39,913 --> 00:14:42,916
Style War presented
DJ-ing, rapping,

277
00:14:42,951 --> 00:14:45,988
break dancing, and
graffiti as expressions

278
00:14:46,023 --> 00:14:48,991
of this same hip
hop sub-culture.

279
00:14:49,026 --> 00:14:53,306
When Tony and Henry
created this film,

280
00:14:53,340 --> 00:14:55,722
it seemed like it
was all together

281
00:14:55,756 --> 00:14:59,139
and it was all this
hip hop package.

282
00:14:59,174 --> 00:15:01,521
The young kids that received
that from around the world

283
00:15:01,555 --> 00:15:03,488
decided that it
was only one thing.

284
00:15:03,523 --> 00:15:04,904
They didn't just
do the graffiti,

285
00:15:04,938 --> 00:15:08,286
they didn't just do the
DJ-ing or the dancing.

286
00:15:08,321 --> 00:15:09,494
They had to do it all.

287
00:15:10,392 --> 00:15:12,049
[Narrator] Alongside Style Wars,

288
00:15:12,083 --> 00:15:14,775
Henry Chalfant
published Subway Art,

289
00:15:14,810 --> 00:15:17,433
a book of the best images
from the subway system,

290
00:15:17,468 --> 00:15:20,540
in collaboration with photo
journalist Martha Cooper.

291
00:15:22,059 --> 00:15:24,854
The music, book, and
film spread graffiti

292
00:15:24,889 --> 00:15:27,064
beyond the perimeter
of New York City,

293
00:15:27,098 --> 00:15:31,102
to walls, trains, and
overpasses across the planet.

294
00:15:31,137 --> 00:15:32,483
[upbeat hip hop music]

295
00:15:34,347 --> 00:15:36,832
I consider Style
Wars and Subway Art

296
00:15:36,866 --> 00:15:38,903
the holy grail of
graffiti, right?

297
00:15:38,938 --> 00:15:41,388
I went out and I stole
two cans of spray paint,

298
00:15:41,423 --> 00:15:44,840
which I learned became part
of the sport of graffiti.

299
00:15:44,874 --> 00:15:46,014
You had to rack your paint.

300
00:15:46,048 --> 00:15:47,567
And I went to my high
school that night,

301
00:15:47,601 --> 00:15:50,604
and I had like two cans
of white, two cans of red,

302
00:15:50,639 --> 00:15:52,572
and I sat out there, and I was
waiting for it to get dark,

303
00:15:52,606 --> 00:15:53,504
and I couldn't even wait.

304
00:15:53,538 --> 00:15:54,677
It was like dusk.

305
00:15:54,712 --> 00:15:55,885
I jumped the fence,
went in there,

306
00:15:55,920 --> 00:15:57,059
did this big surf piece,
and it was terrible.

307
00:15:57,094 --> 00:15:59,096
I mean, just the ugliest
thing you ever saw.

308
00:15:59,130 --> 00:16:00,925
The next day I got to school,
and I was all bummed out,

309
00:16:00,960 --> 00:16:02,720
'cause it wasn't like
the photos I saw.

310
00:16:02,754 --> 00:16:04,273
But I saw a huge
crowd around it,

311
00:16:04,308 --> 00:16:05,550
and everyone was like,
"That's so cool!"

312
00:16:05,585 --> 00:16:07,069
And I was like, "That's cool?"

313
00:16:08,795 --> 00:16:11,004
Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant

314
00:16:11,039 --> 00:16:13,524
completely changed the
direction of my life.

315
00:16:13,558 --> 00:16:14,456
I was a little kid.

316
00:16:14,490 --> 00:16:15,733
I was down at King's Road.

317
00:16:16,734 --> 00:16:19,254
I went into WHSmith's
and I saw this book

318
00:16:19,288 --> 00:16:23,223
called "Subway Art", and it wasthe first thing that I stole.

319
00:16:24,155 --> 00:16:26,433
And it became my bible.

320
00:16:26,468 --> 00:16:28,849
I was like, "Oh my god.

321
00:16:28,884 --> 00:16:32,508
"There's this place where
people are painting trains,

322
00:16:32,543 --> 00:16:34,131
"and you don't know
that they're trains.

323
00:16:34,165 --> 00:16:36,996
"I need to do this for
some weird reason."

324
00:16:37,789 --> 00:16:42,035
Hip hop and rap was being
exported from New York.

325
00:16:42,070 --> 00:16:45,314
I was listening to Grandmaster
Flash and Sugarhill Gang.

326
00:16:45,349 --> 00:16:47,247
I was kind of into
break dancing,

327
00:16:47,282 --> 00:16:49,698
but I couldn't
break dance at all.

328
00:16:49,732 --> 00:16:51,700
I wanted to be
part of the scene,

329
00:16:51,734 --> 00:16:55,462
so graffiti kind
of did it for me.

330
00:16:55,497 --> 00:16:59,018
[energetic hip hop music]

331
00:17:08,855 --> 00:17:11,961
[gentle piano music]

332
00:17:23,525 --> 00:17:25,251
[Voice Actor] I come from
a relatively small city

333
00:17:25,285 --> 00:17:26,321
in southern England.

334
00:17:27,287 --> 00:17:28,909
When I was about 10 years old,

335
00:17:28,944 --> 00:17:31,878
a kid called 3D was
painting the streets hard.

336
00:17:31,912 --> 00:17:33,845
I think he'd been to New
York and was the first

337
00:17:33,880 --> 00:17:35,882
to bring spray painting
back to Bristol.

338
00:17:37,435 --> 00:17:39,472
I grew up seeing spray
paint on the streets

339
00:17:39,506 --> 00:17:42,406
way before I saw it in a
magazine or on a computer.

340
00:17:45,926 --> 00:17:47,135
Bristol is a port.

341
00:17:47,169 --> 00:17:50,276
It's a city built on trade.

342
00:17:50,310 --> 00:17:53,417
Most notoriously, it's
trade was the slave trade,

343
00:17:53,451 --> 00:17:55,143
the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

344
00:17:56,420 --> 00:17:59,664
Old Bristol was destroyed
in the Second World War.

345
00:17:59,699 --> 00:18:02,150
And so the whole demographic
of Bristol changed,

346
00:18:02,184 --> 00:18:04,221
because the
working-class community

347
00:18:04,255 --> 00:18:07,051
were moved out from
the center of town.

348
00:18:07,086 --> 00:18:10,296
And it took a long, long time
for Bristol to be rebuilt.

349
00:18:10,330 --> 00:18:13,747
When I was growing up in
Bristol in the '70s and '80s,

350
00:18:13,782 --> 00:18:16,129
an awful lot of it
was still bomb sites.

351
00:18:16,164 --> 00:18:18,442
And that coincided in the '70s

352
00:18:18,476 --> 00:18:21,790
with the closure
of the city docks.

353
00:18:21,824 --> 00:18:24,275
And the center of Bristol
became a bit of a wasteland.

354
00:18:27,658 --> 00:18:30,178
A very multicultural city.

355
00:18:31,282 --> 00:18:32,732
In the last 30 or 40 years,

356
00:18:32,766 --> 00:18:37,012
it's been an incredibly
creative environment.

357
00:18:37,046 --> 00:18:39,773
If you look at the people
who have come out of there.

358
00:18:41,016 --> 00:18:44,399
You have Massive Attack,
Tricky, Portishead,

359
00:18:44,433 --> 00:18:46,780
that have shaped a
new form of music.

360
00:18:46,815 --> 00:18:48,713
You have someone like
Bansky that's gone on

361
00:18:48,748 --> 00:18:50,991
and become famous worldwide.

362
00:18:52,786 --> 00:18:57,722
Bristol is big enough to have
interesting things going on

363
00:18:58,067 --> 00:19:01,899
but small enough that
people connect very quickly

364
00:19:01,933 --> 00:19:03,970
and ideas spread quickly.

365
00:19:04,971 --> 00:19:08,285
Bristol had the opportunity to
have a really healthy scene,

366
00:19:08,319 --> 00:19:10,839
a very focused and
healthy scene growing

367
00:19:10,873 --> 00:19:12,841
quite quickly in the '80s.

368
00:19:14,498 --> 00:19:17,880
[Narrator] That scene, its
art, music, and its politics,

369
00:19:17,915 --> 00:19:20,159
would come to shape
Banksy's future career.

370
00:19:21,643 --> 00:19:25,060
In the mid-'80s, however, he
was still a young schoolboy,

371
00:19:25,094 --> 00:19:27,476
trying to find out what
he might be good at.

372
00:19:29,168 --> 00:19:31,204
Banksy's background
is a regular,

373
00:19:31,239 --> 00:19:33,793
middle-class Bristol boy.

374
00:19:33,827 --> 00:19:35,864
I think he got an E in art.

375
00:19:35,898 --> 00:19:37,762
He never went to art school.

376
00:19:37,797 --> 00:19:41,145
But people who studied
with him at the time

377
00:19:41,180 --> 00:19:43,941
said he had something
in his art work

378
00:19:43,975 --> 00:19:45,839
that they hadn't seen before.

379
00:19:47,220 --> 00:19:51,707
[Reporter] And Mrs. Thatcher
out onto the doorstep.

380
00:19:51,742 --> 00:19:55,366
Where there is discord
may we bring harmony.

381
00:19:55,401 --> 00:19:58,680
Where there is error
may we bring truth.

382
00:19:58,714 --> 00:20:01,821
Where there is doubt
may we bring faith.

383
00:20:01,855 --> 00:20:05,031
And where there is
despair may we bring hope.

384
00:20:05,065 --> 00:20:07,620
[somber music]

385
00:20:09,069 --> 00:20:10,139
See what they're doing?

386
00:20:11,589 --> 00:20:14,247
[Narrator] The 1980s was
a time in which Britain

387
00:20:14,282 --> 00:20:17,526
was rocked by civil unrest
and economic turmoil

388
00:20:17,561 --> 00:20:20,115
as the conservative government
of Margaret Thatcher

389
00:20:20,149 --> 00:20:23,256
sought to completely
reshape the country.

390
00:20:23,291 --> 00:20:25,603
Tearing up the old
social contract,

391
00:20:25,638 --> 00:20:27,881
Thatcher launched the
capitalist revolution

392
00:20:27,916 --> 00:20:30,125
that placed money and the market

393
00:20:30,159 --> 00:20:31,885
at the center of national life.

394
00:20:33,646 --> 00:20:34,371
Good evening.

395
00:20:34,405 --> 00:20:36,131
Mrs. Thatcher has said it again.

396
00:20:36,165 --> 00:20:38,616
Her government intends to
see its economic policy

397
00:20:38,651 --> 00:20:40,066
through to a conclusion.

398
00:20:41,654 --> 00:20:43,138
Industries went out of business.

399
00:20:43,172 --> 00:20:46,072
Parts of the UK, particularly
the north and the midlands

400
00:20:46,106 --> 00:20:48,350
were de-industrialized
very rapidly

401
00:20:48,385 --> 00:20:49,869
and became like ghost towns.

402
00:20:51,457 --> 00:20:54,080
There was this sort of
almost overnight desolation

403
00:20:54,114 --> 00:20:57,083
that descended on
a lot of the UK.

404
00:20:57,635 --> 00:20:59,982
No prospects for young people.

405
00:21:00,017 --> 00:21:01,536
Some of them turned to heroin.

406
00:21:01,570 --> 00:21:03,296
It was a bleak time.

407
00:21:05,022 --> 00:21:07,749
Bristol at the
time was suffering

408
00:21:07,783 --> 00:21:12,788
from a lot of industries
going, unemployment, conflict.

409
00:21:13,133 --> 00:21:14,756
There were riots.

410
00:21:14,790 --> 00:21:17,137
It was, like much of
Britain at the time,

411
00:21:17,172 --> 00:21:18,415
quite an unhappy city.

412
00:21:19,795 --> 00:21:22,936
It was still that
old British mentality

413
00:21:22,971 --> 00:21:24,731
of Friday night fight night.

414
00:21:24,766 --> 00:21:26,285
And it really was.

415
00:21:26,319 --> 00:21:28,839
It was that kind of, went
out drinking on a Friday,

416
00:21:28,873 --> 00:21:30,772
you had a fight, you went
home, it was a good night.

417
00:21:31,842 --> 00:21:36,364
Bristol rebelled against
the culture of Thatcher-ism.

418
00:21:37,744 --> 00:21:41,127
The idea of everything
having a value, for example.

419
00:21:41,161 --> 00:21:43,267
And it manifested
itself in the growth

420
00:21:43,302 --> 00:21:45,373
of the alternative
culture in Bristol.

421
00:21:45,407 --> 00:21:48,824
And Bristol adopted hip hop,
New York hip hop particularly,

422
00:21:48,859 --> 00:21:51,793
as its dominant subculture.

423
00:21:51,827 --> 00:21:54,071
And it's from there, really,

424
00:21:54,105 --> 00:21:57,764
that its anti-authority
kind of attitude

425
00:21:57,799 --> 00:22:01,734
seems to have come about,
not by design, by accident.

426
00:22:02,873 --> 00:22:04,357
[Narrator] The
arrival of hip hop

427
00:22:04,392 --> 00:22:07,533
made a spectacular impact on
Bristol's music and art scene.

428
00:22:08,499 --> 00:22:12,123
Clubs in the largely black and
Irish community of St. Pauls

429
00:22:12,158 --> 00:22:14,263
began hosting hip hop nights.

430
00:22:14,298 --> 00:22:16,473
And several of the
city's sound systems

431
00:22:16,507 --> 00:22:19,579
started to incorporate
Emceeing and break beats.

432
00:22:20,684 --> 00:22:22,548
The Wild Bunch
sound system emerged

433
00:22:22,582 --> 00:22:24,688
as the dominant
force on the scene,

434
00:22:24,722 --> 00:22:26,862
and its nights performing
at the Dugout Club

435
00:22:26,897 --> 00:22:31,315
in central Bristol quickly
became the stuff of legend.

436
00:22:31,350 --> 00:22:35,008
The Wild Bunch was a
group of DJs and rappers.

437
00:22:35,043 --> 00:22:38,598
Out of the Wild Bunch
grew Massive Attack.

438
00:22:38,633 --> 00:22:41,601
Nellee Hooper, one of
the great producers

439
00:22:41,636 --> 00:22:45,156
of the 20th century worked
with Soul II Soul and Bjork.

440
00:22:45,191 --> 00:22:47,400
It was sort of like
the training ground

441
00:22:47,435 --> 00:22:50,679
for people who would be
defining cultural figures

442
00:22:50,714 --> 00:22:52,336
of the British '90s.

443
00:22:52,371 --> 00:22:55,581
[upbeat hip hop music]

444
00:23:03,451 --> 00:23:05,660
And they were definitely
the coolest guys

445
00:23:05,694 --> 00:23:07,075
on the scene at the time,

446
00:23:07,109 --> 00:23:09,526
and a lot of people
wanted to imitate them.

447
00:23:10,734 --> 00:23:12,874
Being able to put on
a party in a house,

448
00:23:12,908 --> 00:23:14,910
charging 50 P on the door,

449
00:23:14,945 --> 00:23:17,879
hiring a reggae sound system
from some guys down the road

450
00:23:17,913 --> 00:23:20,088
who had some really
big speaker boxes,

451
00:23:20,122 --> 00:23:22,262
and having an illegal
bar in the corner

452
00:23:22,297 --> 00:23:24,817
and filling the house with
a couple of hundred people

453
00:23:24,851 --> 00:23:26,957
was relatively straightforward.

454
00:23:26,991 --> 00:23:30,478
[energetic hip hop music]

455
00:23:33,826 --> 00:23:36,345
It was no coincidence
that the explosion

456
00:23:36,380 --> 00:23:40,867
of both graffiti in
Bristol at that time

457
00:23:40,902 --> 00:23:43,870
and hip hop culture,
sound system culture

458
00:23:43,905 --> 00:23:47,633
especially in Bristol,
both seemed to

459
00:23:47,667 --> 00:23:49,842
mushroom simultaneously
together.

460
00:23:50,912 --> 00:23:53,121
[energetic hip hop music]

461
00:23:53,155 --> 00:23:55,537
[Narrator] The twin art
forms of music and graffiti

462
00:23:55,572 --> 00:23:59,438
were personified by the single
figure of Robert Del Naja,

463
00:23:59,472 --> 00:24:01,888
a founding member
of the Wild Bunch.

464
00:24:01,923 --> 00:24:06,928
Del Naja, also variously known
as 3D, Delj, or simply D,

465
00:24:07,238 --> 00:24:10,000
had spend some time in New
York during the early '80s,

466
00:24:10,034 --> 00:24:11,967
and when he returned to Bristol,

467
00:24:12,002 --> 00:24:14,142
he brought graffiti with him.

468
00:24:14,349 --> 00:24:18,180
3D was also arguably the
UK's first graffiti artist.

469
00:24:18,215 --> 00:24:19,423
He was really a visionary.

470
00:24:19,458 --> 00:24:21,736
He always had his eye
on the big picture.

471
00:24:22,944 --> 00:24:26,534
He would wander around
and paint full-color,

472
00:24:26,568 --> 00:24:30,538
fully-blown pieces of graffiti
in very, very public spaces,

473
00:24:30,572 --> 00:24:33,644
freehand, with
very neat outlines,

474
00:24:33,679 --> 00:24:36,440
very precisely well
thought out color schemes.

475
00:24:36,475 --> 00:24:38,925
It was like New York
had arrived in Bristol.

476
00:24:41,410 --> 00:24:46,174
For us, as kids grown up on
estates and everything else,

477
00:24:46,208 --> 00:24:49,591
it's like suddenly you
started seeing this art form

478
00:24:49,626 --> 00:24:52,318
that belonged to us for
the first time ever.

479
00:24:52,352 --> 00:24:54,389
Like, I'd never
been in a gallery.

480
00:24:54,423 --> 00:24:56,529
I'd never gone to a museum.

481
00:24:56,564 --> 00:24:58,566
And then, suddenly
started seeing

482
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:01,741
this kind of visceral art
form come out of New York

483
00:25:01,776 --> 00:25:05,538
that was at that time tied
in with hip hop as well.

484
00:25:05,573 --> 00:25:07,609
I used to get the bus into town

485
00:25:07,644 --> 00:25:10,405
to travel around
to see D's pieces.

486
00:25:10,439 --> 00:25:12,511
3D started painting in 1983.

487
00:25:12,545 --> 00:25:14,892
And not long afterwards,
the film Wild Style

488
00:25:14,927 --> 00:25:18,965
was shown at the Art
Center Cinema in Bristol.

489
00:25:20,346 --> 00:25:22,348
How can you call people
that hang out windows,

490
00:25:22,382 --> 00:25:24,005
and watch trains,
Writers, man?

491
00:25:24,039 --> 00:25:24,937
You gotta write!

492
00:25:24,971 --> 00:25:26,248
You gotta do the action, man!

493
00:25:26,283 --> 00:25:27,871
You know, you gotta
go there, rack up!

494
00:25:27,905 --> 00:25:30,045
You gotta go out and paint

495
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:32,289
and be called an outlaw
at the same time.

496
00:25:33,048 --> 00:25:34,394
[Interviewee] Myself and
a group of friends

497
00:25:34,429 --> 00:25:37,570
sat and watched this
window on New York

498
00:25:37,605 --> 00:25:40,539
and all the different aspects
of the hip hop subculture.

499
00:25:41,609 --> 00:25:44,301
To then walk out of the cinema
and see all this graffiti

500
00:25:44,335 --> 00:25:47,580
with the name 3D and the Z Boys,

501
00:25:47,615 --> 00:25:49,962
which was the crew that
he was painting with,

502
00:25:49,996 --> 00:25:52,274
right there and then,
it was immediate.

503
00:25:52,309 --> 00:25:55,726
There were a number of crews
that started that night

504
00:25:55,761 --> 00:25:58,522
when Wild Style was first shownat the Arts Center Cinema.

505
00:25:59,419 --> 00:26:01,870
[Narrator] This proliferation
of budding graffiti artists

506
00:26:01,905 --> 00:26:03,596
coincided with the retirement

507
00:26:03,631 --> 00:26:06,185
of their spiritual
leader, Robert Del Naja.

508
00:26:07,324 --> 00:26:10,292
Issued with a final warning
by the police, Del Naja

509
00:26:10,327 --> 00:26:13,951
hung up his spray can toconcentrate on his music career.

510
00:26:13,986 --> 00:26:16,091
He went on to form
Massive Attack,

511
00:26:16,126 --> 00:26:19,094
one of the most important
British bands of the era.

512
00:26:19,232 --> 00:26:21,510
Del Naja was a pioneer.

513
00:26:21,545 --> 00:26:25,722
Alongside him, then you had
guys like Z Boys, Ian Dark,

514
00:26:25,756 --> 00:26:30,761
Jafa, Fade, you had Feel
It, Inkie, Nick Walker.

515
00:26:31,106 --> 00:26:33,592
Those, for me,
were the originals.

516
00:26:37,043 --> 00:26:39,632
[gentle music]

517
00:26:41,151 --> 00:26:42,359
[Narrator] While Robert Del Naja

518
00:26:42,393 --> 00:26:45,120
had been a lone gunslingerroaming the streets of Bristol,

519
00:26:45,155 --> 00:26:47,847
stalked by the police,
the wave of writers

520
00:26:47,882 --> 00:26:50,678
who came after him benefited
from the appearance

521
00:26:50,712 --> 00:26:52,749
of an unofficial
graffiti headquarters

522
00:26:52,783 --> 00:26:54,060
in the east of the city.

523
00:26:55,372 --> 00:26:58,099
Amid the social
difficulties of the 1980s

524
00:26:58,133 --> 00:27:00,964
and bleak prospects
for most young people,

525
00:27:00,998 --> 00:27:03,552
a local youth worker
named John Nation

526
00:27:03,587 --> 00:27:06,486
offered up the walls of his
youth club to any artist

527
00:27:06,521 --> 00:27:09,835
brave enough to travel to
the badlands of Barton Hill.

528
00:27:12,078 --> 00:27:14,011
[Voice Actor] I'd heard there
was a graffiti hall of fame

529
00:27:14,046 --> 00:27:16,289
somewhere in Barton
Hill, but my dad

530
00:27:16,324 --> 00:27:18,188
was badly beaten
up there as a kid

531
00:27:18,222 --> 00:27:20,708
and had his trousers
stolen, so he'd always

532
00:27:20,742 --> 00:27:23,400
put the fear of God
into me about the place.

533
00:27:23,434 --> 00:27:24,712
Of course, it turned out to be

534
00:27:24,746 --> 00:27:27,818
the most inspiring stretch
of concrete in Bristol.

535
00:27:27,853 --> 00:27:31,270
And I made a pilgrimage
there every weekend.

536
00:27:31,304 --> 00:27:33,686
What it showed us
was very powerful:

537
00:27:33,721 --> 00:27:35,964
that there was a choice
between compromising

538
00:27:35,999 --> 00:27:38,553
and following your own
strange little dreams.

539
00:27:40,866 --> 00:27:44,697
Barton Hill was an area which
had a terrible reputation.

540
00:27:44,732 --> 00:27:47,735
It struck fear into, if you
were not from Barton Hill,

541
00:27:47,769 --> 00:27:49,322
you didn't go to Barton Hill.

542
00:27:50,876 --> 00:27:52,463
White.

543
00:27:52,498 --> 00:27:54,155
Working class.

544
00:27:54,189 --> 00:27:58,193
Hostile to outsiders
from the area.

545
00:27:58,228 --> 00:28:00,713
Very territorial.

546
00:28:00,748 --> 00:28:04,337
Strong sense of community.

547
00:28:04,372 --> 00:28:07,202
But also, Barton
Hill had a reputation

548
00:28:07,237 --> 00:28:10,136
as being a tough place,
and a lot of that

549
00:28:10,171 --> 00:28:13,864
was to do with an older
generation of lads

550
00:28:13,899 --> 00:28:17,281
that were predominantly
into football hooliganism.

551
00:28:18,835 --> 00:28:21,009
A lot of them were
deemed as being

552
00:28:21,044 --> 00:28:23,736
into right-wing National Front.

553
00:28:25,773 --> 00:28:28,741
Barton Hill Youth Club
provided a meeting place

554
00:28:28,776 --> 00:28:31,744
for disaffected youth
from across Bristol,

555
00:28:31,779 --> 00:28:34,229
kids who were getting
into a lot of trouble,

556
00:28:34,264 --> 00:28:39,269
and channeled their energies
into a far more creative way

557
00:28:39,407 --> 00:28:42,410
through what John always
referred to as "aerosol art."

558
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:46,794
Two young guys had
visited New York,

559
00:28:46,828 --> 00:28:49,520
and they approached me to paint

560
00:28:49,555 --> 00:28:52,489
the external face of
Barton Hill Youth Club.

561
00:28:52,523 --> 00:28:56,286
Now, at that time, the front
of Barton Hill Youth Club

562
00:28:56,320 --> 00:29:00,255
was adorned with
political statements,

563
00:29:00,290 --> 00:29:03,362
National Front emblems,
Barton Hill Boot Boys,

564
00:29:03,396 --> 00:29:06,537
Bristol City Service Firm
football hooligan crew.

565
00:29:06,572 --> 00:29:11,163
That kind of culture was
what was being displayed

566
00:29:11,197 --> 00:29:12,647
on Barton Youth
Club at that time.

567
00:29:12,681 --> 00:29:15,995
So, we decided this is
something that was fresh,

568
00:29:16,030 --> 00:29:19,309
and the fact that these two
guys are Barton Hill locals

569
00:29:19,343 --> 00:29:21,621
and that they want to
do this was encouraging.

570
00:29:21,656 --> 00:29:25,453
And that really was the
beginnings of laying some of

571
00:29:25,487 --> 00:29:28,042
the foundations for Barton Hill

572
00:29:28,076 --> 00:29:30,769
to grow a huge
reputation in the city.

573
00:29:32,115 --> 00:29:35,635
The one place in Bristol
where you could paint legally

574
00:29:35,670 --> 00:29:38,431
all day long on the
walls of the ball court,

575
00:29:38,466 --> 00:29:40,468
and likely on the
outside of the building.

576
00:29:40,502 --> 00:29:42,263
It was bliss.

577
00:29:42,297 --> 00:29:43,436
It was luxury.

578
00:29:43,471 --> 00:29:46,267
We could sit around,
take our time.

579
00:29:46,301 --> 00:29:48,752
The other thing that
Barton Hill Youth Club had

580
00:29:48,787 --> 00:29:51,859
was that it backed onto
the railway tracks.

581
00:29:53,446 --> 00:29:56,001
[Narrator] Painting safely
and legally at a youth center

582
00:29:56,035 --> 00:29:58,210
was one thing, but
it lacked the glamor

583
00:29:58,244 --> 00:29:59,901
of New York subway art.

584
00:29:59,936 --> 00:30:02,662
The danger, the
rush, and, crucially,

585
00:30:02,697 --> 00:30:05,113
the ability to achieve
city-wide renown.

586
00:30:06,321 --> 00:30:08,565
The young graffiti
writers at Barton Hill

587
00:30:08,599 --> 00:30:10,498
used the club as a staging post

588
00:30:10,532 --> 00:30:12,327
for bombing raids on trains,

589
00:30:12,362 --> 00:30:14,916
buses, and walls across Bristol.

590
00:30:14,951 --> 00:30:17,229
And before long,
their names and styles

591
00:30:17,263 --> 00:30:20,128
became a familiar part
of the urban landscape.

592
00:30:20,232 --> 00:30:21,923
You had artists like

593
00:30:23,062 --> 00:30:25,099
Inkie, Felix,

594
00:30:25,133 --> 00:30:27,239
Turo, Era,

595
00:30:27,273 --> 00:30:28,999
Chaos, and Shab.

596
00:30:30,414 --> 00:30:33,314
I started painting with
a crew called Crime Inc,

597
00:30:33,348 --> 00:30:37,697
and we followed the
template set down by 3D

598
00:30:37,732 --> 00:30:40,010
in as much as we would sneak out

599
00:30:40,045 --> 00:30:43,427
after our parents were
in bed and go and paint

600
00:30:43,462 --> 00:30:45,844
pieces of graffiti
around the city.

601
00:30:46,983 --> 00:30:49,675
And the level of
tagging that took over

602
00:30:49,709 --> 00:30:52,471
in Barton Hill
encroached on the quality

603
00:30:52,505 --> 00:30:55,267
of people's private
and public property.

604
00:30:55,301 --> 00:30:58,270
The auto shop was getting
knocked off in Barton Hill.

605
00:30:58,304 --> 00:31:00,444
Proper break-ins.

606
00:31:00,479 --> 00:31:02,826
They managed to find a way in

607
00:31:02,861 --> 00:31:06,657
through the back of the
premises and relieve them

608
00:31:06,692 --> 00:31:08,452
of hundreds and hundreds
of tins of paint.

609
00:31:09,246 --> 00:31:12,180
Many of the houses that
were on the housing estate,

610
00:31:12,215 --> 00:31:14,907
adjacent to Barton Youth
Club, their front doors

611
00:31:14,942 --> 00:31:18,117
were tagged, their
bins, the local pub,

612
00:31:18,152 --> 00:31:22,087
the wall was absolutely
caned with tags.

613
00:31:22,121 --> 00:31:23,743
There was a trail
you could follow.

614
00:31:23,778 --> 00:31:27,678
You would know that
there was a center

615
00:31:27,713 --> 00:31:29,197
where graffiti was taking place

616
00:31:29,232 --> 00:31:32,891
and that this trail of tags
and throw-ups and daubs

617
00:31:32,925 --> 00:31:35,928
led to that one center
point, which was Barton Hill.

618
00:31:35,963 --> 00:31:39,690
This antagonized a lot
of the local residents.

619
00:31:39,725 --> 00:31:44,040
It got to a point where
the council and the police,

620
00:31:44,074 --> 00:31:46,456
British Transport
Police, specifically,

621
00:31:46,490 --> 00:31:48,285
were starting to
talk to one another.

622
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:50,115
And they got to a
point where they felt

623
00:31:50,149 --> 00:31:51,323
that something had to be done.

624
00:31:52,289 --> 00:31:54,947
A city that can't
control its vandals

625
00:31:54,982 --> 00:31:57,570
is seen by many to be a
city that's out of control.

626
00:31:59,158 --> 00:32:01,022
[Narrator] In the
summer of 1989,

627
00:32:01,057 --> 00:32:03,783
the British Transport Police
launched a series of raids

628
00:32:03,818 --> 00:32:06,890
to arrest Bristol's most
infamous graffiti artists.

629
00:32:07,995 --> 00:32:11,239
The raids were the culmination
of Operation Anderson,

630
00:32:11,274 --> 00:32:14,139
a yearlong investigation
into Barton Hill,

631
00:32:14,173 --> 00:32:16,348
the biggest
anti-graffiti operation

632
00:32:16,382 --> 00:32:18,937
ever to be undertaken in the UK.

633
00:32:18,971 --> 00:32:22,181
A total of 72 people involved
in the graffiti scene

634
00:32:22,216 --> 00:32:25,529
were rounded up and charged
with criminal damage.

635
00:32:25,564 --> 00:32:28,981
John Nation was interrogated
and pressured to divulge

636
00:32:29,016 --> 00:32:31,570
the real names behind
the city's tags.

637
00:32:31,604 --> 00:32:33,227
If he refused to cooperate,

638
00:32:33,261 --> 00:32:35,539
he would be charged
with conspiracy,

639
00:32:35,574 --> 00:32:38,335
the most serious offense
that the police could allege.

640
00:32:39,543 --> 00:32:41,545
Most of the artists
were convicted,

641
00:32:41,580 --> 00:32:45,929
but I didn't divulge oneperson's identity to the police,

642
00:32:45,964 --> 00:32:49,346
and so they charged me
with conspiracy to organize

643
00:32:49,381 --> 00:32:52,453
and incite individuals to
commit criminal damage.

644
00:32:52,487 --> 00:32:54,420
I had a trust placed in
me by those young people

645
00:32:54,455 --> 00:32:57,320
and the confidentiality
and the respect

646
00:32:57,354 --> 00:32:59,667
and the bond that I had
with those young people

647
00:33:00,979 --> 00:33:03,671
would be the determining factor.

648
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:07,778
[dramatic electronic music]

649
00:33:10,919 --> 00:33:12,266
[Voice Actor] It might
sound a little crazy,

650
00:33:12,300 --> 00:33:14,302
but I think John
Nation, that shouty,

651
00:33:14,337 --> 00:33:17,340
red-faced little social
worker who made it all happen,

652
00:33:17,374 --> 00:33:18,962
has had more impact on the shape

653
00:33:18,997 --> 00:33:21,585
of British culture
over the past 20 years

654
00:33:21,620 --> 00:33:24,174
than anyone else to
come from the city.

655
00:33:24,209 --> 00:33:27,039
And I bet none of the cops
who arrested him can say that.

656
00:33:29,662 --> 00:33:32,010
So the consequence
of Operation Anderson

657
00:33:32,044 --> 00:33:36,428
was that the majority
of the writers stopped,

658
00:33:36,704 --> 00:33:40,018
which is what the authorities,
of course, wanted.

659
00:33:41,053 --> 00:33:43,745
The other consequence was
that those who continued

660
00:33:43,780 --> 00:33:45,299
went completely underground

661
00:33:45,333 --> 00:33:48,543
and lived completely
outside the law.

662
00:33:48,578 --> 00:33:52,927
So you had a smaller group of
very, very hardcore writers

663
00:33:52,961 --> 00:33:55,723
who were taking on
the authorities.

664
00:33:55,757 --> 00:33:59,451
And it was into this
vacuum, if you like,

665
00:34:01,039 --> 00:34:02,178
that Banksy emerged.

666
00:34:02,902 --> 00:34:04,697
[curious electronic music]

667
00:34:04,732 --> 00:34:06,147
[Narrator] A generation younger

668
00:34:06,182 --> 00:34:08,770
than the first wave of
Bristol graffiti writers,

669
00:34:08,805 --> 00:34:11,773
Banksy showed up on the
scene in the early '90s,

670
00:34:11,808 --> 00:34:13,706
where he fell in
with one of the crews

671
00:34:13,741 --> 00:34:16,088
that had remained
active in the aftermath

672
00:34:16,123 --> 00:34:17,400
of Operation Anderson.

673
00:34:18,780 --> 00:34:22,267
Banksy first appeared working
with the DryBreadzCrew,

674
00:34:22,301 --> 00:34:24,476
which the Loki and Kato, Tes.

675
00:34:25,615 --> 00:34:28,790
He was a snotty
kid hanging around,

676
00:34:28,825 --> 00:34:31,621
saying, "Can I spray
something as well?"

677
00:34:31,655 --> 00:34:34,175
and was largely ignored until
he just hung around so much

678
00:34:34,210 --> 00:34:37,489
that eventually they relented,
and he started working

679
00:34:37,523 --> 00:34:39,732
with DryBreadz or
Bad Apples Crew,

680
00:34:39,767 --> 00:34:41,493
which were essentially
the same crew.

681
00:34:41,527 --> 00:34:43,736
I think the probably
all came together

682
00:34:43,771 --> 00:34:47,223
around the same time,
probably slightly dismayed

683
00:34:47,257 --> 00:34:51,227
that people had actually been
able to be put off painting

684
00:34:51,261 --> 00:34:54,126
by what happened during
Operation Anderson.

685
00:34:54,161 --> 00:34:55,541
But I'm sure it
made a young Banksy

686
00:34:55,576 --> 00:34:58,889
more determined to get
his work out there.

687
00:34:59,062 --> 00:35:00,684
They very quickly
realized that there

688
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:02,859
was something a bit
special about Banksy

689
00:35:02,893 --> 00:35:05,068
and that this little
kid was pretty good

690
00:35:05,103 --> 00:35:07,381
as a freehand
artist at that time

691
00:35:08,313 --> 00:35:10,418
and had some really
interesting ideas.

692
00:35:10,453 --> 00:35:13,870
A lot of those ideas were aroundthe placement of the work.

693
00:35:13,904 --> 00:35:16,631
Sometimes the pieces
which DryBreadz

694
00:35:16,666 --> 00:35:19,945
or Bad Apples were putting
up were put up in places

695
00:35:19,979 --> 00:35:22,672
where were quite dangerous
for them to paint,

696
00:35:22,706 --> 00:35:24,881
so quite public places.

697
00:35:24,915 --> 00:35:28,091
And there was a reluctance
for them to go there,

698
00:35:28,126 --> 00:35:30,058
because they thought
they'd be nicked,

699
00:35:30,093 --> 00:35:34,028
until they realized the nextday, when they were on the bus,

700
00:35:34,062 --> 00:35:37,583
that it was directly
opposite the bus stop

701
00:35:37,618 --> 00:35:41,104
and at eye level with
the top deck of the bus.

702
00:35:41,139 --> 00:35:43,175
And so, he'd thought
out where the work

703
00:35:43,210 --> 00:35:45,488
was gonna be most visible,

704
00:35:45,522 --> 00:35:47,973
which is a theme which
is really important

705
00:35:48,007 --> 00:35:50,113
to Banksy's work,
is where it goes,

706
00:35:50,148 --> 00:35:51,183
whether it's opposite a bus stop

707
00:35:51,218 --> 00:35:53,047
on a busy main road in Bristol,

708
00:35:53,081 --> 00:35:56,326
or whether it's the Walled
Off Hotel in Palestine.

709
00:35:56,361 --> 00:35:59,053
The placement of the work
is absolutely crucial

710
00:35:59,087 --> 00:36:00,123
to his art, I feel.

711
00:36:01,573 --> 00:36:04,058
When he first started,
he was painting letters.

712
00:36:04,092 --> 00:36:08,407
He was, in all sense and
purposes, a graffiti artist.

713
00:36:08,442 --> 00:36:11,030
Whether he was a
great graffiti artist,

714
00:36:11,065 --> 00:36:12,963
that's debatable in
my humble opinion.

715
00:36:12,998 --> 00:36:15,345
He's gone on to
progress from being ...

716
00:36:17,140 --> 00:36:19,004
a half-decent graph
writer, I would say,

717
00:36:19,038 --> 00:36:22,110
to a totally different
conceptual artist

718
00:36:22,145 --> 00:36:24,527
from the guys that he was with.

719
00:36:24,561 --> 00:36:27,357
He was off the
radar at that point.

720
00:36:27,392 --> 00:36:30,981
He wasn't one of the knownwriters from Operation Anderson.

721
00:36:31,016 --> 00:36:32,190
The police didn't
have his number;

722
00:36:32,224 --> 00:36:33,674
they didn't know who he was,

723
00:36:33,708 --> 00:36:36,815
hence his anonymity was
so important to his work.

724
00:36:39,438 --> 00:36:41,233
[Narrator] Banksy's
early work suggested

725
00:36:41,268 --> 00:36:44,547
that he was a different
breed of graffiti artist.

726
00:36:44,581 --> 00:36:47,239
His pieces often
included social comments

727
00:36:47,274 --> 00:36:49,517
or vaguely political messages.

728
00:36:49,552 --> 00:36:51,001
Highly unusual for an art form

729
00:36:51,036 --> 00:36:53,625
that was mainly concerned
with letter forms

730
00:36:53,659 --> 00:36:54,971
and striking visuals.

731
00:36:55,558 --> 00:36:59,044
[upbeat electronic music]

732
00:37:02,012 --> 00:37:03,428
Banksy emerged during a time

733
00:37:03,462 --> 00:37:05,947
when British culture
was changing.

734
00:37:05,982 --> 00:37:08,743
Following the arrival of
house music from Chicago,

735
00:37:08,778 --> 00:37:11,850
the sound systems and
free parties of the 1980s

736
00:37:11,884 --> 00:37:14,473
had evolved into
large-scale illegal raves

737
00:37:14,508 --> 00:37:17,269
fueled by a new drug: ecstasy.

738
00:37:18,615 --> 00:37:21,273
Shut out of graffiti
by Operation Anderson,

739
00:37:21,308 --> 00:37:24,172
many of Bristol's
underground artists grifted

740
00:37:24,207 --> 00:37:26,278
into the rave scene,
where they continued

741
00:37:26,313 --> 00:37:29,247
to disregard society's
established rules.

742
00:37:30,420 --> 00:37:32,974
The state response to
rave would be one event

743
00:37:33,009 --> 00:37:36,046
amongst several that
directly politicized Banksy.

744
00:37:37,220 --> 00:37:39,947
By the early '90s, the
conservative government,

745
00:37:39,981 --> 00:37:42,812
which had always been repressivetowards minority groups

746
00:37:42,846 --> 00:37:44,952
and those outside
of the mainstream,

747
00:37:44,986 --> 00:37:47,265
was struggling to
maintain its authority.

748
00:37:48,300 --> 00:37:50,889
The poll tax, a new
system of taxation

749
00:37:50,923 --> 00:37:53,443
felt by many to be an
attack on the poor,

750
00:37:53,478 --> 00:37:55,963
provoked fierce
rioting in London,

751
00:37:55,997 --> 00:37:57,723
pit the police
against the people,

752
00:37:57,758 --> 00:38:00,278
and led to the downfall
of Margaret Thatcher.

753
00:38:05,352 --> 00:38:08,355
After John Major replaced
Thatcher as Prime Minister,

754
00:38:08,389 --> 00:38:10,288
his government
launched a campaign

755
00:38:10,322 --> 00:38:11,875
against groups that
he considered

756
00:38:11,910 --> 00:38:13,394
to be socially disruptive.

757
00:38:14,119 --> 00:38:17,847
In 1994, the deeply
unpopular Criminal Justice

758
00:38:17,881 --> 00:38:22,127
and Public Order Act paved the
way for a crackdown on raves.

759
00:38:22,161 --> 00:38:23,922
It gave the police
sweeping powers

760
00:38:23,956 --> 00:38:26,614
to stop and search,
evict squatters,

761
00:38:26,649 --> 00:38:28,720
and to take action
against a gathering

762
00:38:28,754 --> 00:38:30,894
of as few as five
people listening

763
00:38:30,929 --> 00:38:33,380
to what it termed
"repetitive beats."

764
00:38:36,659 --> 00:38:40,110
The new law also discriminated
against both Gypsies

765
00:38:40,145 --> 00:38:43,079
and Travelers, an
itinerant community

766
00:38:43,113 --> 00:38:45,978
that traversed the British
countryside in caravans

767
00:38:46,013 --> 00:38:49,672
and was associated with
anarchism, environmentalism,

768
00:38:49,706 --> 00:38:52,191
libertarianism, and
other radical ideas.

769
00:38:53,020 --> 00:38:56,506
[upbeat electronic music]

770
00:38:57,369 --> 00:39:00,061
[Voice Actor] I got politicizedduring the poll tax riots,

771
00:39:00,096 --> 00:39:02,961
criminal justice acts,
and the Hartcliff riots.

772
00:39:02,995 --> 00:39:04,342
That was Bristol's Rodney King.

773
00:39:05,308 --> 00:39:06,827
I can also remember my old man

774
00:39:06,861 --> 00:39:08,829
taking me down to
see the Lloyd's Bank,

775
00:39:08,863 --> 00:39:11,245
what was left of
it, after the 1980

776
00:39:11,279 --> 00:39:12,936
St. Pauls riots in Bristol.

777
00:39:14,593 --> 00:39:16,388
It's mad to see
how the whole thing

778
00:39:16,423 --> 00:39:18,977
of having to do what your
told can be taken back

779
00:39:19,011 --> 00:39:21,255
and how few people it
takes to grab it back.

780
00:39:24,465 --> 00:39:27,261
[Narrator] Banksy was close
to the Traveler community,

781
00:39:27,295 --> 00:39:30,091
who were a large presence
in the southwest of England.

782
00:39:31,092 --> 00:39:33,405
The Glastonbury Festival,
Britain's annual

783
00:39:33,440 --> 00:39:36,581
summer celebration of
music, peace, love,

784
00:39:36,615 --> 00:39:40,343
and alternative living, took
place not far from Bristol,

785
00:39:40,378 --> 00:39:42,621
and Travelers were a
fixture at the site.

786
00:39:43,657 --> 00:39:46,970
In 1998, he painted this piece,

787
00:39:47,005 --> 00:39:48,834
inspired by hop hop and rave,

788
00:39:48,869 --> 00:39:52,113
on the side of a trailer at
the Glastonbury festival.

789
00:39:52,148 --> 00:39:55,220
The smiley face, the
unofficial logo of rave,

790
00:39:55,254 --> 00:39:57,567
appears in many of
his later stencils.

791
00:39:58,741 --> 00:40:02,400
By the close of the '90s,
Banksy, pictured here

792
00:40:02,434 --> 00:40:05,437
during a trip to visit the
left-wing Zapatista rebels

793
00:40:05,472 --> 00:40:07,543
in Mexico, had become an artist

794
00:40:07,577 --> 00:40:10,546
for whom message was
as important as image.

795
00:40:14,584 --> 00:40:16,414
Certainly in the early days

796
00:40:16,448 --> 00:40:19,865
it's that very
kind of simplistic,

797
00:40:19,900 --> 00:40:23,248
left-wing attitude of
most of the Travelers,

798
00:40:23,282 --> 00:40:25,906
which, I'm a lifelong
Labour supporter,

799
00:40:25,940 --> 00:40:28,909
but I can't stand
that Traveling scene,

800
00:40:28,943 --> 00:40:31,187
never could, never will, yeah?

801
00:40:31,221 --> 00:40:34,915
But I can see where bits
of that came through to him

802
00:40:34,949 --> 00:40:37,158
in his mentality and
the way he thought.

803
00:40:38,608 --> 00:40:39,747
He was reflecting

804
00:40:39,782 --> 00:40:42,785
the anti-capitalism,
the anti-authority,

805
00:40:42,819 --> 00:40:45,581
the anti-war feelings
which were prevalent

806
00:40:45,615 --> 00:40:48,376
among the Bristol
underground at the time,

807
00:40:48,411 --> 00:40:50,378
and a genuine belief
that the world

808
00:40:50,413 --> 00:40:53,381
can be changed to be a
better, and fairer place.

809
00:40:55,107 --> 00:40:56,108
[Narrator] At the same time,

810
00:40:56,143 --> 00:40:58,283
Banksy was evolving
stylistically.

811
00:40:59,215 --> 00:41:01,493
Stenciling, a technique
that had notably

812
00:41:01,528 --> 00:41:03,564
been favored by Robert Del Naja,

813
00:41:03,599 --> 00:41:06,256
became an increasingly
important part of his work.

814
00:41:06,947 --> 00:41:11,192
[intriguing electronic music]

815
00:41:11,227 --> 00:41:14,955
Something that, if you
were doing freehand,

816
00:41:14,989 --> 00:41:18,303
would take you hours, and
if you were using a stencil

817
00:41:19,615 --> 00:41:21,720
would take you less
than five minutes

818
00:41:21,755 --> 00:41:24,378
and you probably won't
get caught doing it.

819
00:41:25,724 --> 00:41:29,556
You have an idea, you have
an image, you print it out.

820
00:41:29,590 --> 00:41:30,867
You then project that image

821
00:41:30,902 --> 00:41:33,076
onto a piece of
card in your studio.

822
00:41:33,111 --> 00:41:36,563
You cut it out into like
a three-layer stencil.

823
00:41:36,597 --> 00:41:38,841
You then walk up to a wall

824
00:41:39,704 --> 00:41:42,534
and you stick the first layer
of the stencil on the wall,

825
00:41:42,569 --> 00:41:44,502
which isn't illegal.

826
00:41:44,536 --> 00:41:47,505
And you stand there and
you wait for no one to come

827
00:41:47,539 --> 00:41:48,816
and you spray the first card.

828
00:41:48,851 --> 00:41:50,335
And you take it down,
give it to your mate,

829
00:41:50,369 --> 00:41:54,373
stick the next layer up,
which, again, isn't illegal.

830
00:41:54,408 --> 00:41:58,101
So, it's pretty hard to get
caught painting stencils.

831
00:41:59,586 --> 00:42:01,104
Everyone can understand them.

832
00:42:01,139 --> 00:42:04,107
They're not this dense tagging.

833
00:42:04,142 --> 00:42:06,420
You see them, you
click immediately.

834
00:42:08,008 --> 00:42:10,389
It's the time that you
spend in your studio

835
00:42:10,424 --> 00:42:14,773
thinking of the idea and
doing the preparation

836
00:42:16,257 --> 00:42:20,883
is why I think it's slightly
better than graffiti.

837
00:42:23,402 --> 00:42:27,199
I think stencils
initially were met with

838
00:42:27,234 --> 00:42:28,580
quite a lot of derision.

839
00:42:28,615 --> 00:42:30,548
They weren't taken
very seriously.

840
00:42:31,963 --> 00:42:34,034
A graffiti artist would never
be caught dead doing that.

841
00:42:34,068 --> 00:42:37,037
That's the main difference, is
we would never do that shit.

842
00:42:38,763 --> 00:42:40,109
[Voice Actor] Traditional
graffiti artists

843
00:42:40,143 --> 00:42:42,594
have a lot of rules that
they like to stick to.

844
00:42:42,629 --> 00:42:44,009
And good luck to them.

845
00:42:44,044 --> 00:42:45,597
But I didn't become
a graffiti artist

846
00:42:45,632 --> 00:42:48,048
so I could have other
people tell me what to do.

847
00:42:49,428 --> 00:42:51,154
If you're gonna do graffiti,

848
00:42:51,189 --> 00:42:53,018
you've gotta steal
your spray paint,

849
00:42:53,053 --> 00:42:55,918
and you've gotta paint trains,
and you've gotta tag stuff.

850
00:42:57,367 --> 00:42:58,852
You know, if you
want to sit there

851
00:42:58,886 --> 00:43:01,579
in your stagnating graffiti,

852
00:43:01,613 --> 00:43:04,443
it has to be like this,
well, then poor you.

853
00:43:05,583 --> 00:43:08,827
Because everything
evolves and moves on.

854
00:43:13,798 --> 00:43:16,421
[bright music]

855
00:43:21,806 --> 00:43:24,671
[Narrator] For graffiti,
that evolution dates back

856
00:43:24,705 --> 00:43:26,673
to the very early
days of New York.

857
00:43:28,053 --> 00:43:29,952
At the time that the
hardcore graffiti writers

858
00:43:29,986 --> 00:43:32,782
were bombing trains, work
appeared on the streets

859
00:43:32,817 --> 00:43:35,129
and in the subway
stations that shadowed

860
00:43:35,164 --> 00:43:37,718
the underground culture
of tags and pieces

861
00:43:37,753 --> 00:43:40,307
but was recognizably different.

862
00:43:40,341 --> 00:43:42,412
Together with his
friend, Al Diaz,

863
00:43:42,447 --> 00:43:45,277
a young artist named
Jean-Michel Basquiat

864
00:43:45,312 --> 00:43:48,556
toured lower Manhattan,
writing the tag SAMO,

865
00:43:48,591 --> 00:43:51,283
an abbreviation of
"same old shit",

866
00:43:51,318 --> 00:43:55,253
accompanied by thought-provokingslogans and epigrams.

867
00:43:55,287 --> 00:43:57,565
Another young
artist, Keith Haring,

868
00:43:57,600 --> 00:43:59,291
was tracking the SAMO pieces

869
00:43:59,326 --> 00:44:02,847
while developing his own
form of illegal public art,

870
00:44:02,881 --> 00:44:05,608
drawing chalk outlines
of figures and characters

871
00:44:05,643 --> 00:44:08,922
on vacant advertising boards
in the New York subway

872
00:44:08,956 --> 00:44:12,615
and attaching mock headlines
to lampposts around Manhattan.

873
00:44:14,513 --> 00:44:17,862
Basquiat and Keith
Haring were really

874
00:44:17,896 --> 00:44:21,797
the beginning of street
art, modern street art,

875
00:44:21,831 --> 00:44:25,145
as we understand it, in
that it was taking the tools

876
00:44:25,179 --> 00:44:29,908
and the philosophy, the kind
of ethos behind graffiti

877
00:44:29,943 --> 00:44:32,255
but stepping to
one side with it.

878
00:44:32,290 --> 00:44:35,811
Statements that have more to
do with newspaper headlines

879
00:44:35,845 --> 00:44:38,848
or the kind of posters you'd
see outside a church, say.

880
00:44:38,883 --> 00:44:40,608
Looking at the ideas
of public space

881
00:44:40,643 --> 00:44:43,715
and how one could create art

882
00:44:43,750 --> 00:44:45,475
that would be seen
by a mass audience

883
00:44:45,510 --> 00:44:49,238
rather an elitist audience was
kind of the key difference.

884
00:44:51,619 --> 00:44:55,831
Banksy's well aware of the
history of the art form

885
00:44:55,865 --> 00:44:58,109
and those kind of key
players at key moments.

886
00:45:01,008 --> 00:45:03,079
[Narrator] And for Banksy,
there was no influence

887
00:45:03,114 --> 00:45:06,945
more important than the French
stencil artist Blek le Rat.

888
00:45:07,981 --> 00:45:10,190
Blek, who had first
encountered graffiti

889
00:45:10,224 --> 00:45:13,711
during a trip to New York,
adapted the idea of street art

890
00:45:13,745 --> 00:45:15,057
to the European tradition

891
00:45:15,091 --> 00:45:17,576
of stenciling political
statements on walls.

892
00:45:18,923 --> 00:45:20,821
His project, to bring
socially-conscious

893
00:45:20,856 --> 00:45:22,029
art to the public,

894
00:45:22,064 --> 00:45:26,551
began in 1981, when stencils
of rats started to appear

895
00:45:26,585 --> 00:45:28,035
in the streets of Paris.

896
00:45:31,970 --> 00:45:34,559
Blek le Rat's signature
wasn't Blek le Rat.

897
00:45:34,593 --> 00:45:35,836
It was the rat.

898
00:45:37,873 --> 00:45:40,013
Rats everywhere,
like running around.

899
00:45:40,047 --> 00:45:42,360
And you would see multiple
rats on the walls.

900
00:45:42,394 --> 00:45:45,881
He was also painting
homeless people on walls.

901
00:45:45,915 --> 00:45:49,954
And so, he basically was an
artist that had a message.

902
00:45:49,988 --> 00:45:51,956
His message was:
look at these things

903
00:45:51,990 --> 00:45:53,612
that are wrong in the city.

904
00:45:53,647 --> 00:45:55,028
Look at the homeless population.

905
00:45:55,062 --> 00:45:56,236
There's something wrong

906
00:45:56,270 --> 00:45:58,238
that there's so many
homeless people.

907
00:45:58,272 --> 00:45:59,895
They're invisible to us.

908
00:45:59,929 --> 00:46:01,655
I'm gonna make them more visible

909
00:46:01,689 --> 00:46:03,622
by painting them on
the walls, right?

910
00:46:04,831 --> 00:46:08,213
High art concept,
low art technology.

911
00:46:09,387 --> 00:46:13,046
Whereas the graffiti artist
may be the other way around,

912
00:46:13,080 --> 00:46:14,633
where it's definitely
about, say,

913
00:46:14,668 --> 00:46:17,015
this technical skill
with the spray can,

914
00:46:17,050 --> 00:46:19,397
that kind of thing,
these intricate letters,

915
00:46:19,431 --> 00:46:23,677
which is great and fantastic,
but who are you speaking to,

916
00:46:23,711 --> 00:46:25,990
and ultimately what is
the goal at the end?

917
00:46:27,163 --> 00:46:29,476
But if the goal at the
end is I really want to,

918
00:46:29,510 --> 00:46:32,030
say, change the world,
like I want to deal

919
00:46:32,065 --> 00:46:34,722
with these bigger,
headier concepts,

920
00:46:34,757 --> 00:46:37,311
and that's where Banksy
changed the game.

921
00:46:39,210 --> 00:46:42,351
He's taken the best of all
these different worlds:

922
00:46:42,385 --> 00:46:45,043
the graffiti world and how
he operates on the street,

923
00:46:45,078 --> 00:46:48,322
the stencil world in what
he creates as an image,

924
00:46:48,357 --> 00:46:51,981
and sort of this social
activist point of view.

925
00:46:52,016 --> 00:46:55,088
Three different, say,
personality types

926
00:46:55,122 --> 00:46:57,159
packaged into one person.

927
00:46:57,193 --> 00:47:00,334
You have a really
high-profile art terrorist

928
00:47:00,369 --> 00:47:01,473
on your hands, right?

929
00:47:02,889 --> 00:47:05,753
[Narrator] In the mid-'90s,
a British television program,

930
00:47:05,788 --> 00:47:09,550
Shadow People, captured
a young Banksy at work.

931
00:47:09,585 --> 00:47:12,174
The program provides
a fascinating insight

932
00:47:12,208 --> 00:47:14,348
into how Banksy was
painting around Bristol

933
00:47:14,383 --> 00:47:16,557
in the wake of
Operation Anderson

934
00:47:16,592 --> 00:47:19,491
and how he viewed
himself as an artist.

935
00:47:19,526 --> 00:47:22,632
The footage also
showed that, by 1995,

936
00:47:22,667 --> 00:47:25,325
stenciling, rather
than freehand painting,

937
00:47:25,359 --> 00:47:27,258
had become central to his art.

938
00:47:30,088 --> 00:47:30,986
[Banksy] Yeah, I've decided that

939
00:47:31,020 --> 00:47:33,057
I don't ever want to
do a gallery show.

940
00:47:33,091 --> 00:47:35,887
Like a proper gallery show.
[indistinct]

941
00:47:37,061 --> 00:47:38,614
You know, if somebody came to
me with a lot of money,

942
00:47:38,648 --> 00:47:39,822
I'd tell him to fuck off.

943
00:47:40,927 --> 00:47:44,240
And I don't feel the
need to go to a gallery

944
00:47:44,275 --> 00:47:45,966
to make my art
feel legitimate.

945
00:47:46,898 --> 00:47:48,658
And yet, if I go to the
pub and somebody says

946
00:47:48,693 --> 00:47:50,868
that they like what
I've just done,

947
00:47:52,041 --> 00:47:55,286
and I might get a beer,
or I might meet a girl

948
00:47:55,320 --> 00:47:58,013
that likes what I do,
then that's enough.

949
00:47:58,047 --> 00:48:01,740
[upbeat electronic music]

950
00:48:01,775 --> 00:48:03,328
[Narrator] By the
close of the '90s,

951
00:48:03,363 --> 00:48:05,123
Banksy had become
an important figure

952
00:48:05,158 --> 00:48:07,125
on the Bristol art scene.

953
00:48:07,160 --> 00:48:09,334
Together with the
graffiti artist Inkie,

954
00:48:09,369 --> 00:48:12,544
he organized Walls on
Fire, a landmark event

955
00:48:12,579 --> 00:48:15,547
supported by the city,
in which street artists

956
00:48:15,582 --> 00:48:18,757
legally painted over
400 meters of hoardings

957
00:48:18,792 --> 00:48:22,451
in Bristol Harbor, while sound
systems pumped out hip hop.

958
00:48:26,041 --> 00:48:29,907
A few months later, Banksy
painted The Mild Mild West,

959
00:48:29,941 --> 00:48:32,564
his first large-scale
mural on the side

960
00:48:32,599 --> 00:48:35,740
of an abandoned building
in the Stokes Croft area.

961
00:48:35,774 --> 00:48:38,260
The mural soon became
an iconic monument

962
00:48:38,294 --> 00:48:40,469
to Bristol's local culture.

963
00:48:40,503 --> 00:48:44,645
I've always seen it as being
a welcome to Bristol sign.

964
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:48,822
It's actually a reference
to a particular party

965
00:48:48,856 --> 00:48:51,411
which was broken
up by the police,

966
00:48:51,445 --> 00:48:54,069
and it's Banksy's
protest, if you like,

967
00:48:54,103 --> 00:48:58,832
against the police
taking on the rave scene.

968
00:48:58,866 --> 00:49:01,973
We might be peace-loving,
we might just be after

969
00:49:02,008 --> 00:49:03,906
a good time, we
might be just trying

970
00:49:03,941 --> 00:49:06,046
to do our own things, but
don't push us too far.

971
00:49:06,633 --> 00:49:08,704
It kind of distilled
his aesthetic.

972
00:49:08,738 --> 00:49:10,361
Though it was painted freehand,

973
00:49:10,395 --> 00:49:13,226
Banksy stenciled his
name along the bottom.

974
00:49:13,260 --> 00:49:16,091
If you take Walls on
Fire as a comparison,

975
00:49:16,125 --> 00:49:17,782
he was still
painting traditional

976
00:49:17,816 --> 00:49:19,853
mural graffiti up to that point.

977
00:49:19,887 --> 00:49:21,717
The Mild Mild West
made it very clear

978
00:49:21,751 --> 00:49:23,236
where he was going from there.

979
00:49:24,651 --> 00:49:26,204
[Narrator] Banksy's
direction of travel

980
00:49:26,239 --> 00:49:28,862
was away from Graffiti
and towards a career

981
00:49:28,896 --> 00:49:31,796
as a new type of
contemporary artist.

982
00:49:31,830 --> 00:49:34,454
In 2000, he graduated
from the streets

983
00:49:34,488 --> 00:49:37,215
with a small exhibition at
the Severnshed Restaurant

984
00:49:37,250 --> 00:49:38,872
in Bristol.

985
00:49:38,906 --> 00:49:41,012
The show, with its
canvasses painted

986
00:49:41,047 --> 00:49:42,841
by an infamous local vandal,

987
00:49:42,876 --> 00:49:46,190
attracted the attention of
both public and media alike.

988
00:49:47,812 --> 00:49:49,020
[Interviewer] Excuse me, madam.

989
00:49:49,055 --> 00:49:50,849
You see this bit of graffiti
here with the two rats there

990
00:49:50,884 --> 00:49:52,334
and the rat up there
with the fellow?

991
00:49:52,368 --> 00:49:53,576
What do you think of it?

992
00:49:53,611 --> 00:49:54,992
[Woman] I think
it's most strange.

993
00:49:55,026 --> 00:49:56,579
[Interviewer] Can I just
introduce to the man

994
00:49:56,614 --> 00:49:57,546
who actually sprayed that thing?

995
00:49:57,580 --> 00:49:59,065
Would you call him a vandal?

996
00:49:59,099 --> 00:50:02,033
[Woman] Well, I suppose you
are being a vandal, really.

997
00:50:02,930 --> 00:50:04,415
[Host] Graffiti had taken Banksy

998
00:50:04,449 --> 00:50:08,039
to cities across Britain as
the original street outlaw.

999
00:50:08,074 --> 00:50:09,765
But recently, he's
moved to London,

1000
00:50:09,799 --> 00:50:11,905
started accepting commissions,

1001
00:50:11,939 --> 00:50:14,804
and is now holding a
conventional exhibition.

1002
00:50:14,839 --> 00:50:15,840
[Banksy] Well, I'm
kind of old-fashioned,

1003
00:50:15,874 --> 00:50:17,531
in that I like to eat.

1004
00:50:17,566 --> 00:50:18,774
So it's always
good to earn money.

1005
00:50:18,808 --> 00:50:21,432
And also, I'm trying
to make canvasses work

1006
00:50:21,466 --> 00:50:22,433
better than graffiti can work,

1007
00:50:22,467 --> 00:50:24,400
'cause you can take time on it.

1008
00:50:24,435 --> 00:50:26,057
Graffiti doesn't always come
out the way you like it,

1009
00:50:26,092 --> 00:50:29,129
'cause you're rushing,
your panicking or whatever.

1010
00:50:29,164 --> 00:50:31,062
[Host] Every artist
has to develop,

1011
00:50:31,097 --> 00:50:34,341
and it's time for Banksy
to face new challenges.

1012
00:50:34,445 --> 00:50:37,482
That show really caught
people's imagination.

1013
00:50:37,517 --> 00:50:39,277
People who didn't know his
work went there and thought,

1014
00:50:39,312 --> 00:50:41,245
"wow, this art talks to me.

1015
00:50:41,279 --> 00:50:43,626
"It's radical, it's
clever, it's witty,

1016
00:50:43,661 --> 00:50:46,802
"it's got a political
point, it's well-executed."

1017
00:50:46,836 --> 00:50:49,356
I know several people
who bought pieces there

1018
00:50:49,391 --> 00:50:53,084
who said it was the first time
they'd every bought any art.

1019
00:50:53,119 --> 00:50:55,259
[soft electronic music]

1020
00:50:55,293 --> 00:50:56,812
[Narrator] Though
exhibiting in galleries

1021
00:50:56,846 --> 00:50:58,400
and working on commission,

1022
00:50:58,434 --> 00:51:01,196
Banksy remained active
as an illegal artist.

1023
00:51:02,956 --> 00:51:06,063
His street work no longerbelonged to the graffiti scene,

1024
00:51:06,097 --> 00:51:07,719
but neither was he associated

1025
00:51:07,754 --> 00:51:09,342
with the contemporary art world.

1026
00:51:10,998 --> 00:51:13,415
Instead, Banksy was
part of a new group

1027
00:51:13,449 --> 00:51:17,074
of post-graffiti artists
who, like Basquiat,

1028
00:51:17,108 --> 00:51:19,662
Keith Haring, and Blek
le Rat before them,

1029
00:51:19,697 --> 00:51:23,770
were experimenting with newforms of unauthorized urban art.

1030
00:51:26,773 --> 00:51:29,189
I thought graffiti was
gonna change the art world,

1031
00:51:29,224 --> 00:51:32,296
shake everything up,
and it didn't do that.

1032
00:51:32,330 --> 00:51:35,851
It just stayed
relatively underground.

1033
00:51:37,266 --> 00:51:41,374
The most success that graffiti
had was working with brands.

1034
00:51:41,408 --> 00:51:44,239
It didn't really make
it into art galleries.

1035
00:51:44,273 --> 00:51:45,964
It wasn't picked
up by collectors.

1036
00:51:47,380 --> 00:51:50,072
And as I was becoming more
and more disillusioned

1037
00:51:50,107 --> 00:51:52,557
with graffiti, this weird thing

1038
00:51:52,592 --> 00:51:54,352
called street art
started to happen.

1039
00:51:57,562 --> 00:52:00,151
Graffiti writers
reinvented themselves,

1040
00:52:00,186 --> 00:52:02,153
and you had people
like Cost and Revs

1041
00:52:02,188 --> 00:52:04,707
who started putting
wheat paste up everywhere

1042
00:52:04,742 --> 00:52:06,675
with all kinds of messaging.

1043
00:52:06,709 --> 00:52:07,986
And then you have the
emergence of people

1044
00:52:08,021 --> 00:52:10,679
like Shepard Fairey, who
also saw the potential

1045
00:52:10,713 --> 00:52:12,129
of just putting posters,

1046
00:52:12,163 --> 00:52:15,511
like rock club announcements
of punk announcements.

1047
00:52:18,480 --> 00:52:20,930
All of a sudden, these little
rats started appearing.

1048
00:52:20,965 --> 00:52:23,036
And more people
were doing stickers

1049
00:52:23,070 --> 00:52:27,040
that weren't based around
a skateboard brand.

1050
00:52:28,593 --> 00:52:30,630
There was Shepard
Fairey, there was Bast,

1051
00:52:30,664 --> 00:52:34,634
there was Foul,
Banksy, Osgemeos.

1052
00:52:36,014 --> 00:52:40,191
People using an
opportunity in the street

1053
00:52:40,226 --> 00:52:42,331
and turning it into
their advantage.

1054
00:52:43,781 --> 00:52:46,508
You know, turning bollards
into like missiles.

1055
00:52:47,992 --> 00:52:49,511
And it sounds, like,
corny and shit,

1056
00:52:49,545 --> 00:52:51,340
but it was just
something different.

1057
00:52:53,618 --> 00:52:55,102
There was a bunch of
people around the world

1058
00:52:55,137 --> 00:52:58,140
that were doing something
that wasn't graffiti,

1059
00:52:58,175 --> 00:52:59,969
and at the time it
didn't have a name.

1060
00:53:04,871 --> 00:53:08,530
[ethereal electronic music]

1061
00:53:11,464 --> 00:53:13,155
[Narrator] The nascent
street art movement

1062
00:53:13,190 --> 00:53:15,985
found a home in Shoreditch,
a rundown district

1063
00:53:16,020 --> 00:53:19,575
in London's East End, where a
new underground was thriving.

1064
00:53:29,620 --> 00:53:32,588
It was a mixed place
where immigrants,

1065
00:53:32,623 --> 00:53:36,247
people without much
money all could mix.

1066
00:53:36,282 --> 00:53:40,251
This whole new street
scene began to move in.

1067
00:53:40,286 --> 00:53:44,842
Artists went there of all types,because the rent was cheap.

1068
00:53:46,982 --> 00:53:49,053
[Narrator] Banksy,
now living in London,

1069
00:53:49,087 --> 00:53:52,298
was a fixture at The Dragon,
a small bar tucked away

1070
00:53:52,332 --> 00:53:54,817
in a side street near
the Old Street Roundabout

1071
00:53:54,852 --> 00:53:57,026
that had become the
informal headquarters

1072
00:53:57,061 --> 00:53:58,614
of the street art community.

1073
00:54:00,202 --> 00:54:04,102
Dragon Bar was this
unique, weird place

1074
00:54:04,137 --> 00:54:06,553
that was run by a guy
called Justin Piggott,

1075
00:54:08,348 --> 00:54:10,074
who was an ex-junkie,

1076
00:54:11,834 --> 00:54:18,082
but into art, and it was modeledon like a Lower East Side,

1077
00:54:18,116 --> 00:54:21,188
kind of divey,
skateboardy, graffiti bar.

1078
00:54:22,293 --> 00:54:25,054
And at the back of the bar
they had this car park,

1079
00:54:25,089 --> 00:54:27,471
and we used to put
parties in that.

1080
00:54:27,505 --> 00:54:29,611
And because it was
just that little bit

1081
00:54:29,645 --> 00:54:34,650
out of the beaten track,
we'd keep it open all night.

1082
00:54:34,823 --> 00:54:37,274
We had a license to 11
o'clock, and we'd keep it--

1083
00:54:37,308 --> 00:54:39,828
I was serving booze until
three o'clock in the morning.

1084
00:54:39,862 --> 00:54:42,969
And I just became
this lawless weird zone.

1085
00:54:43,003 --> 00:54:47,387
It was just like a
free-wheeling kind of madness

1086
00:54:47,422 --> 00:54:50,045
where everybody knew each other.

1087
00:54:50,079 --> 00:54:51,736
You had artists coming in.

1088
00:54:51,771 --> 00:54:56,776
You had Faile coming into
town, Bast, Invader, Shepard.

1089
00:54:57,328 --> 00:54:59,123
All these guys
congregated there,

1090
00:54:59,157 --> 00:55:00,987
and it was an epicenter, really,

1091
00:55:01,021 --> 00:55:02,506
of the beginning of the scene.

1092
00:55:03,955 --> 00:55:08,063
At that time, Shoreditch and
Tower Hamlets and Hackney,

1093
00:55:08,097 --> 00:55:10,652
they were the poorest
boroughs in London,

1094
00:55:10,686 --> 00:55:12,654
so you could do
stuff in the street

1095
00:55:12,688 --> 00:55:14,587
and it wouldn't get cleaned off.

1096
00:55:14,621 --> 00:55:16,071
And then it was
like the whole place

1097
00:55:16,105 --> 00:55:17,279
became a wall of fame.

1098
00:55:22,836 --> 00:55:25,529
Me and Banksy, we
painted all the posters

1099
00:55:25,563 --> 00:55:27,876
that used to go on
Shoreditch Bridge,

1100
00:55:27,910 --> 00:55:29,326
upstairs in the Dragon Bar.

1101
00:55:34,503 --> 00:55:37,437
We'd go there, we'd cut
stencils, make posters.

1102
00:55:38,783 --> 00:55:40,095
And then, two o'clock
in the morning,

1103
00:55:40,129 --> 00:55:41,924
when we were pissed
enough, go out

1104
00:55:41,959 --> 00:55:45,721
and jump over railway
bridges and paint stuff.

1105
00:55:45,756 --> 00:55:49,276
[upbeat electronic music]

1106
00:55:50,243 --> 00:55:53,177
[Narrator] Armies of rats,
monkeys, and other images

1107
00:55:53,211 --> 00:55:55,490
started to appear
all over London,

1108
00:55:55,524 --> 00:55:57,354
a new type of visual language

1109
00:55:57,388 --> 00:56:00,011
that became part of the
fabric of the East End

1110
00:56:00,046 --> 00:56:01,944
and which locals
came to associate

1111
00:56:01,979 --> 00:56:04,153
with a single, mysterious name.

1112
00:56:05,292 --> 00:56:07,433
[Voice Actor] It's about
underground culture.

1113
00:56:07,467 --> 00:56:09,883
The things that come
up from the sewers.

1114
00:56:09,918 --> 00:56:11,540
Like most people,
I have a fantasy

1115
00:56:11,575 --> 00:56:15,302
that all the little powerless
losers will gang up together,

1116
00:56:15,337 --> 00:56:17,753
that all the vermin will
get some good equipment,

1117
00:56:17,788 --> 00:56:19,755
and then the underground
will go overground

1118
00:56:19,790 --> 00:56:21,239
and tear this city apart.

1119
00:56:23,449 --> 00:56:24,622
They'd be like, "Oh yeah,

1120
00:56:24,657 --> 00:56:26,106
"I'm gonna go out
and paint some rats."

1121
00:56:26,141 --> 00:56:29,489
So, "Yeah, we'll come, look
out and help you paint."

1122
00:56:31,457 --> 00:56:32,803
It was just like, yeah,
get some cans of beer

1123
00:56:32,837 --> 00:56:34,736
from the fucking,
from the kebab shop,

1124
00:56:36,531 --> 00:56:38,740
and off on your bikes
and cycle around.

1125
00:56:38,774 --> 00:56:40,155
It was just fun.

1126
00:56:40,189 --> 00:56:44,021
It was like, really likeinnocent and naive and just fun.

1127
00:56:44,055 --> 00:56:46,195
We were literally
just having a laugh.

1128
00:56:46,230 --> 00:56:47,956
I don't think any,
maybe Banksy did,

1129
00:56:47,990 --> 00:56:50,372
maybe he had more of a
plan than the rest of us,

1130
00:56:50,407 --> 00:56:53,479
but I don't think any of
us thought really had like,

1131
00:56:53,513 --> 00:56:54,445
we were just doing it for fun.

1132
00:56:56,447 --> 00:57:00,451
It was a really interesting,
fun time that was nothing

1133
00:57:00,486 --> 00:57:04,973
to do with finance or how
much money things cost.

1134
00:57:05,007 --> 00:57:07,078
These guys were just doing
it for shits and giggles.

1135
00:57:07,113 --> 00:57:08,942
It was like, no one
at the time thought

1136
00:57:08,977 --> 00:57:11,082
they were ever gonna
make any money out of it.

1137
00:57:11,117 --> 00:57:12,774
They just had something to say.

1138
00:57:14,051 --> 00:57:16,294
It reminded me of graffiti.

1139
00:57:16,329 --> 00:57:18,331
We were running
round, stenciling,

1140
00:57:18,365 --> 00:57:20,437
climbing over bridges.

1141
00:57:20,471 --> 00:57:22,473
It wasn't about putting
your names up there.

1142
00:57:22,508 --> 00:57:24,717
It was about putting
your imagery up there.

1143
00:57:24,751 --> 00:57:27,754
[upbeat rock music]

1144
00:57:30,688 --> 00:57:33,242
It was an interesting
mix of Traveler,

1145
00:57:33,277 --> 00:57:36,487
anarchist, punk, politics,

1146
00:57:36,522 --> 00:57:40,284
combined with end-of-the-pier,
who were misses,

1147
00:57:40,318 --> 00:57:42,666
English seaside humor.

1148
00:57:42,700 --> 00:57:44,081
The jokes were easy to get,

1149
00:57:44,944 --> 00:57:47,705
and the imagery is
accessible and digestible.

1150
00:57:49,569 --> 00:57:52,676
Very palatable to
the everyday person

1151
00:57:52,710 --> 00:57:55,126
to walk by and say, "Oh!

1152
00:57:56,265 --> 00:57:57,163
"Okay."

1153
00:57:59,855 --> 00:58:01,512
'Cause you don't
choose your audience

1154
00:58:01,547 --> 00:58:03,859
if you're putting
work on the street.

1155
00:58:03,894 --> 00:58:06,793
The work is talking to
people of all classes,

1156
00:58:06,828 --> 00:58:09,486
all creeds, all colors,
all religions, all ages.

1157
00:58:11,557 --> 00:58:14,145
It didn't make
people feel stupid.

1158
00:58:14,180 --> 00:58:18,218
The trouble with a lot of
art, galleries, museums,

1159
00:58:18,253 --> 00:58:19,703
I think it intimidates people.

1160
00:58:19,737 --> 00:58:21,877
And this was something
that was easy to get,

1161
00:58:21,912 --> 00:58:26,088
people could understand, and
felt that it belonged to them.

1162
00:58:26,123 --> 00:58:28,194
This is art where we're
not made to feel stupid.

1163
00:58:28,228 --> 00:58:30,403
For the first time,
I can like art.

1164
00:58:31,508 --> 00:58:35,442
It's that juxtaposition
of iconic imagery

1165
00:58:35,477 --> 00:58:38,204
that many times we
took for granted.

1166
00:58:38,238 --> 00:58:41,897
You put that over here,
gonna stay this about it,

1167
00:58:41,932 --> 00:58:43,174
and then it's like, okay,

1168
00:58:43,209 --> 00:58:46,315
now we almost have like
this tension-filled

1169
00:58:46,350 --> 00:58:48,559
conversation that you
just can't walk by.

1170
00:58:48,594 --> 00:58:49,871
Now you gotta stop.

1171
00:58:49,905 --> 00:58:51,355
Now you gotta think about it.

1172
00:58:51,389 --> 00:58:53,081
And you didn't
have to pay for it.

1173
00:58:54,876 --> 00:58:58,880
There are jokes always
like the sign saying

1174
00:58:58,914 --> 00:59:03,850
designated graffiti area,
or designated riot area.

1175
00:59:03,885 --> 00:59:05,887
It makes you laugh
and it makes you think

1176
00:59:05,921 --> 00:59:07,371
about the issue he's raised.

1177
00:59:09,373 --> 00:59:10,547
In Banksy's work, there's a lot

1178
00:59:10,581 --> 00:59:12,583
of imagery related to innocence.

1179
00:59:12,618 --> 00:59:16,380
There's often children,
there's often nature,

1180
00:59:16,414 --> 00:59:19,763
animals, things that we
associate with people

1181
00:59:19,797 --> 00:59:22,075
or things that need
to be cared for.

1182
00:59:22,110 --> 00:59:24,353
Banksy has a pretty
wide repertoire

1183
00:59:24,388 --> 00:59:26,597
of recurring
figures in his work.

1184
00:59:26,632 --> 00:59:27,702
The mice.

1185
00:59:28,634 --> 00:59:32,051
They're typically engaged
in some weird high jinks.

1186
00:59:34,432 --> 00:59:36,607
Apes also frequently appear.

1187
00:59:36,642 --> 00:59:40,266
They're often shown
to be kind of smarter,

1188
00:59:40,300 --> 00:59:41,957
more interesting than humans

1189
00:59:41,992 --> 00:59:43,856
that they will
probably take over

1190
00:59:43,890 --> 00:59:45,340
once we've finished screwing up

1191
00:59:45,374 --> 00:59:47,135
the whole world
and destroying it.

1192
00:59:48,619 --> 00:59:52,312
The kids, I think, show the
precociousness that exists,

1193
00:59:52,347 --> 00:59:55,419
the joy that exists,
the sort of naivete,

1194
00:59:55,453 --> 00:59:59,768
the fun that can still
exist in the world,

1195
00:59:59,803 --> 01:00:02,633
and how children
sometimes are oblivious

1196
01:00:02,668 --> 01:00:05,463
or even smarter than the adults.

1197
01:00:05,498 --> 01:00:07,776
They're a very important
piece to his work

1198
01:00:07,811 --> 01:00:09,847
and really communicate
really strong messages

1199
01:00:09,882 --> 01:00:12,470
about where we are as a society.

1200
01:00:14,852 --> 01:00:16,716
Then policemen often appear too.

1201
01:00:16,751 --> 01:00:19,236
They're shown as
figures of authority

1202
01:00:19,270 --> 01:00:21,341
who should be questioned.

1203
01:00:21,376 --> 01:00:24,586
But they're also
shown sympathetically,

1204
01:00:24,621 --> 01:00:26,795
people who are in
roles of authority

1205
01:00:26,830 --> 01:00:29,867
that sometimes they
feel a conflict with.

1206
01:00:29,902 --> 01:00:32,939
I'm thinking also of the
two policemen kissing

1207
01:00:32,974 --> 01:00:36,805
and that being something
to think about policemen

1208
01:00:36,840 --> 01:00:39,394
in a different way, maybe,
than we sometimes do.

1209
01:00:40,395 --> 01:00:45,262
He is wanting to uphold
the beauty and power

1210
01:00:46,263 --> 01:00:49,646
and selfhood of the
everyday person,

1211
01:00:49,680 --> 01:00:52,821
in contrast to
institutional systems

1212
01:00:52,856 --> 01:00:56,998
that are weighing things
down and controlling things.

1213
01:01:03,556 --> 01:01:06,352
[energetic rock music]

1214
01:01:06,386 --> 01:01:08,561
[Narrator] The street art
scene arrived at a time

1215
01:01:08,595 --> 01:01:10,597
when the established
contemporary art world

1216
01:01:10,632 --> 01:01:13,393
had, to some extent,
lost its way.

1217
01:01:13,428 --> 01:01:16,949
British art and culture had
thrived during the '90s.

1218
01:01:16,983 --> 01:01:19,192
The conservative
government of the poll tax

1219
01:01:19,227 --> 01:01:21,919
and the Criminal Justice
Act had been swept away

1220
01:01:21,954 --> 01:01:25,509
by the wave of optimism that
carried Tony Blair into office

1221
01:01:25,543 --> 01:01:28,201
and the phrase "cool
Britannia" was coined

1222
01:01:28,236 --> 01:01:29,755
to capture the sense of pride

1223
01:01:29,789 --> 01:01:33,517
in British culture,
music, film, and fashion.

1224
01:01:34,725 --> 01:01:35,692
-Oh my God!
-[laughing]

1225
01:01:36,106 --> 01:01:37,383
[Indistinct chatter]

1226
01:01:37,417 --> 01:01:39,661
It was all happening in Britain.

1227
01:01:39,696 --> 01:01:41,421
There was a new sprit,
a new confidence,

1228
01:01:41,456 --> 01:01:42,733
and youthful energy.

1229
01:01:48,946 --> 01:01:50,223
Britain was swinging again.

1230
01:01:50,707 --> 01:01:51,708
[cheering]

1231
01:01:51,742 --> 01:01:54,469
Almost like a replay of
the '60s, go-getting,

1232
01:01:54,503 --> 01:01:56,333
like we're gonna
take over the world.

1233
01:01:58,715 --> 01:02:00,268
[Narrator] The
contemporary art scene

1234
01:02:00,302 --> 01:02:03,512
was dominated by the so-called
Young British Artists,

1235
01:02:03,547 --> 01:02:07,137
or YBAs, a loose grouping
of insurgent artists

1236
01:02:07,171 --> 01:02:09,933
led by Damien Hirst
and celebrated

1237
01:02:09,967 --> 01:02:12,521
as daring and
rebellious iconoclasts.

1238
01:02:13,453 --> 01:02:17,872
But by the early 2000s, coolBritannia had burned itself out

1239
01:02:17,906 --> 01:02:20,288
and the YBA's luster had faded.

1240
01:02:20,322 --> 01:02:22,221
Big money had moved in.

1241
01:02:22,255 --> 01:02:25,051
And for many, it was hard
to escape the feeling

1242
01:02:25,086 --> 01:02:27,329
that normal service
had been resumed.

1243
01:02:28,779 --> 01:02:30,229
$1.6 million.

1244
01:02:30,263 --> 01:02:32,265
[Voice Actor] The art world
is the biggest joke going.

1245
01:02:32,300 --> 01:02:34,509
It's a rest home for
the over privileged,

1246
01:02:34,543 --> 01:02:36,511
the pretentious, and the weak.

1247
01:02:36,545 --> 01:02:38,789
And modern art is a disgrace.

1248
01:02:38,824 --> 01:02:41,792
Never had so many people
used so much stuff

1249
01:02:41,827 --> 01:02:44,519
and taken so long
to say so little.

1250
01:02:44,553 --> 01:02:47,039
Still, the plus side
is it's probably

1251
01:02:47,073 --> 01:02:48,592
the easiest business
in the world

1252
01:02:48,626 --> 01:02:51,906
to walk into with no talent
and make a few bucks.

1253
01:02:53,355 --> 01:02:56,842
The Young British Artists
had become the establishment.

1254
01:02:56,876 --> 01:02:59,396
Hirst started off
as a revolutionary.

1255
01:02:59,430 --> 01:03:01,708
He was now the establishment.

1256
01:03:01,743 --> 01:03:04,056
[Reporter] Damien, Sarah,
and Angus all showed together

1257
01:03:04,090 --> 01:03:07,611
in a seminal show in
1988 called Freeze.

1258
01:03:07,645 --> 01:03:10,303
16 years later, they're
exhibiting together,

1259
01:03:10,338 --> 01:03:13,686
but at Tate Britain rather
than in a warehouse.

1260
01:03:14,860 --> 01:03:17,207
We're no longer
YBAs, we're OAPs.

1261
01:03:18,898 --> 01:03:22,799
Art had become glamorous,
become fashionable.

1262
01:03:22,833 --> 01:03:25,663
Charles Saatchi's
gallery made it

1263
01:03:25,698 --> 01:03:28,735
into an important source
of money for artists.

1264
01:03:28,770 --> 01:03:30,910
And something had
to crack in this,

1265
01:03:30,945 --> 01:03:34,811
because this is not what art
is supposed to be all about.

1266
01:03:34,845 --> 01:03:38,745
And what came out from
it was street art.

1267
01:03:39,470 --> 01:03:41,852
Street art was
always really good

1268
01:03:41,887 --> 01:03:44,234
at being the little
cheeky chappy

1269
01:03:44,268 --> 01:03:46,823
doing that little
thing behind your back.

1270
01:03:46,857 --> 01:03:48,065
Oh, that's kinda funny.

1271
01:03:48,100 --> 01:03:51,241
Oh, he's having a pop
at the government.

1272
01:03:51,275 --> 01:03:53,450
Your older brother
was into Damien Hirst

1273
01:03:53,484 --> 01:03:57,557
and your younger brother
who's nicking pills

1274
01:03:57,592 --> 01:03:59,697
and going raving is into Banksy.

1275
01:04:00,595 --> 01:04:02,459
The art world
completely ignored it

1276
01:04:02,493 --> 01:04:04,875
because it's a
populist art form.

1277
01:04:04,910 --> 01:04:06,946
And I think the art
world hate that.

1278
01:04:06,981 --> 01:04:08,534
Populism isn't a bad thing.

1279
01:04:08,568 --> 01:04:11,640
It doesn't mean something
that's crass and shit.

1280
01:04:11,675 --> 01:04:14,920
Sometimes it just means
that people like it.

1281
01:04:16,059 --> 01:04:19,994
This was like a movement
that became powerful

1282
01:04:20,028 --> 01:04:23,169
through the people,
not through museum's

1283
01:04:23,204 --> 01:04:24,999
and galleries and curators.

1284
01:04:25,033 --> 01:04:28,416
This was driven by a
general love of the art form

1285
01:04:28,450 --> 01:04:30,383
by the general population.

1286
01:04:32,109 --> 01:04:33,731
[Voice Actor] I'm
frustrated by many things,

1287
01:04:33,766 --> 01:04:34,940
but trying to get accepted

1288
01:04:34,974 --> 01:04:36,942
by the art world
isn't one of them.

1289
01:04:36,976 --> 01:04:39,945
This seems difficult for
people to understand.

1290
01:04:39,979 --> 01:04:41,912
You do not paint
graffiti in the vain hope

1291
01:04:41,947 --> 01:04:44,466
that one day some big fat
Tory will discover you

1292
01:04:44,501 --> 01:04:46,192
and put your
pictures on his wall.

1293
01:04:47,435 --> 01:04:49,195
If you draw on walls in public,

1294
01:04:49,230 --> 01:04:51,680
then you are already
operating on a higher level.

1295
01:04:52,889 --> 01:04:54,891
[Narrator] But whereas
the YBAs had benefited

1296
01:04:54,925 --> 01:04:58,653
from studios, galleries,
grants and patrons,

1297
01:04:58,687 --> 01:05:01,207
London's street artists
had few resources

1298
01:05:01,242 --> 01:05:04,348
beyond the beer-stained
floor of the Dragon Bar.

1299
01:05:04,383 --> 01:05:06,661
For Banksy, a friendship
that he had formed

1300
01:05:06,695 --> 01:05:09,940
with photographer and fellow
Bristolian Steve Lazerides

1301
01:05:09,975 --> 01:05:12,425
soon became key to
promoting his art.

1302
01:05:13,910 --> 01:05:18,466
Steve Lazerides was vital to
Banksy's career for a time.

1303
01:05:18,500 --> 01:05:22,780
What they did was show that
you didn't have to have

1304
01:05:22,815 --> 01:05:25,231
a gallery, be
attached to a gallery,

1305
01:05:25,266 --> 01:05:28,614
to be a well-known,
successful artist.

1306
01:05:28,648 --> 01:05:30,892
They could make
their own gallery.

1307
01:05:30,927 --> 01:05:34,965
They could attract people
to it through various means

1308
01:05:35,000 --> 01:05:37,864
that Lazarides was
absolutely king at.

1309
01:05:38,451 --> 01:05:41,799
What Lazarides did with
Banksy was to establish

1310
01:05:41,834 --> 01:05:44,906
a new way of getting
art to the public.

1311
01:05:46,494 --> 01:05:48,772
[Narrator] The do-it-yourself
ethos of the graffiti

1312
01:05:48,806 --> 01:05:50,774
and free party
scenes carried over

1313
01:05:50,808 --> 01:05:52,707
to the project of
building a system

1314
01:05:52,741 --> 01:05:55,710
for the sale and
exhibition of street art.

1315
01:05:55,744 --> 01:05:59,300
One of the first installments
came in the winter of 2002,

1316
01:05:59,334 --> 01:06:03,028
with Santa's Ghetto, an
exhibition of work by Banksy

1317
01:06:03,062 --> 01:06:06,963
and Ben Eine that went on
to become an annual event.

1318
01:06:06,997 --> 01:06:10,863
We'd been painting stuff
on the street, and ...

1319
01:06:12,106 --> 01:06:14,280
I think some of us had websites,

1320
01:06:14,315 --> 01:06:17,870
so we were aware of
an interest in people

1321
01:06:17,904 --> 01:06:21,908
that wanted to consume or
buy what we were doing,

1322
01:06:21,943 --> 01:06:23,393
but we didn't really
have anything for sale

1323
01:06:23,427 --> 01:06:25,567
or a way of selling it.

1324
01:06:25,602 --> 01:06:28,846
So, we did a Santa's
Ghetto party.

1325
01:06:28,881 --> 01:06:32,264
And yeah, the first one was
upstairs at The Dragon Bar.

1326
01:06:32,298 --> 01:06:35,025
A friend our ours,
Marcus, was the drunk,

1327
01:06:35,060 --> 01:06:37,959
horrible, stinky
Santa in the corner.

1328
01:06:39,064 --> 01:06:41,998
And yeah, we sold everything
for Like 50 quid or something.

1329
01:06:43,551 --> 01:06:46,174
It was completely anarchic.

1330
01:06:46,209 --> 01:06:47,934
I was walking
through Shoreditch,

1331
01:06:47,969 --> 01:06:52,629
from the offices to the
Dragon Bar with like handfuls

1332
01:06:52,663 --> 01:06:54,838
of Banksy prints that
would now be worth

1333
01:06:54,872 --> 01:06:57,634
millions of pounds, just
taking 'em up there.

1334
01:06:57,668 --> 01:06:59,394
And yeah, I kind of
ran it and sold it,

1335
01:06:59,429 --> 01:07:01,258
and it was completely mental.

1336
01:07:02,432 --> 01:07:04,606
Take over a building
and don't turn it

1337
01:07:04,641 --> 01:07:06,332
into an art gallery.

1338
01:07:06,367 --> 01:07:10,681
You know, just anti-art
gallery, anti-establishment,

1339
01:07:10,716 --> 01:07:13,236
and yeah, going back to
that punk kind of ethic.

1340
01:07:14,409 --> 01:07:17,067
We were selling the
multiple canvases.

1341
01:07:17,102 --> 01:07:19,552
So, at the time,
they cost 250 quid.

1342
01:07:19,587 --> 01:07:23,246
So, Girl and Balloon was
250 pound for a canvas.

1343
01:07:23,280 --> 01:07:29,045
And he painted them all in
the upstairs of where we were.

1344
01:07:29,493 --> 01:07:31,668
So we had like 25
canvasses laid out.

1345
01:07:31,702 --> 01:07:34,774
As he was spraying them,
I was numbering them,

1346
01:07:34,809 --> 01:07:36,845
then he'd sign them, and
then we'd take 'em downstairs

1347
01:07:36,880 --> 01:07:38,744
and sell 'em as were going out.

1348
01:07:38,778 --> 01:07:42,506
And that was the whole idea,
really, in those early days,

1349
01:07:42,541 --> 01:07:46,959
was to make, again,
affordable art for people.

1350
01:07:46,993 --> 01:07:47,925
[Narrator] And public interest

1351
01:07:47,960 --> 01:07:50,100
in the movement was soaring.

1352
01:07:50,135 --> 01:07:52,654
Work that in earlier
times might have been seen

1353
01:07:52,689 --> 01:07:55,864
by only a handful of people
who passed it on the street

1354
01:07:55,899 --> 01:07:58,419
could now be preserved
and shared online,

1355
01:07:58,453 --> 01:08:01,111
greatly enhancing the
profile of the artist.

1356
01:08:02,250 --> 01:08:04,010
Banksy was clearly emerging

1357
01:08:04,045 --> 01:08:06,668
as the most prominent
of the street artists.

1358
01:08:06,703 --> 01:08:08,636
At a time when youth
culture was turning

1359
01:08:08,670 --> 01:08:11,017
its face against
governments on both side

1360
01:08:11,052 --> 01:08:13,779
of the Atlantic and
protesting the war on terror

1361
01:08:13,813 --> 01:08:16,678
and invasion of Iraq,
Banksy's antiwar,

1362
01:08:16,713 --> 01:08:20,751
anti-authority agitprop
chimed with the popular mood.

1363
01:08:22,132 --> 01:08:25,446
The war was very important
to Banksy's development.

1364
01:08:25,480 --> 01:08:27,586
The no war or wrong war arts

1365
01:08:27,620 --> 01:08:30,071
very much came from that period.

1366
01:08:30,106 --> 01:08:33,385
It was a perception that
New Labour and Tony Blair

1367
01:08:33,419 --> 01:08:38,010
had let down the generation,
the post-Thatcher generation,

1368
01:08:38,044 --> 01:08:40,392
the same people running society.

1369
01:08:40,426 --> 01:08:42,428
And Banksy and his generation

1370
01:08:42,463 --> 01:08:44,844
I think very much
came out of that.

1371
01:08:44,879 --> 01:08:46,467
There's a real distrust.

1372
01:08:49,090 --> 01:08:51,057
I think you could see
a lot of the spirit

1373
01:08:51,092 --> 01:08:52,990
of that '80s and '90s
underground scene

1374
01:08:53,025 --> 01:08:56,166
in a lot of his earlier
political work, definitely.

1375
01:08:56,201 --> 01:08:58,720
And that's finally
what struck a chord

1376
01:08:58,755 --> 01:09:01,275
with the vast majority
of the British public

1377
01:09:01,309 --> 01:09:07,557
who tapped into the Banksy
phenomenon, was that spirit.

1378
01:09:08,834 --> 01:09:11,492
He was able to articulate
a lot of things

1379
01:09:11,526 --> 01:09:14,702
that people were
thinking but not having

1380
01:09:14,736 --> 01:09:17,291
the same wherewithal
or the tools,

1381
01:09:17,325 --> 01:09:20,880
or the ingenuity to
say this is what it is.

1382
01:09:20,915 --> 01:09:24,539
[somber electronic music]

1383
01:09:24,574 --> 01:09:26,679
[Narrator] In the
summer of 2003,

1384
01:09:26,714 --> 01:09:30,683
Banksy staged his breakthrough
exhibition, Turf War,

1385
01:09:30,718 --> 01:09:33,307
a collection of his
street work, sculpture,

1386
01:09:33,341 --> 01:09:35,757
and vandalized live
animals, some of which

1387
01:09:35,792 --> 01:09:38,381
were painted in homage
to graffiti folklore.

1388
01:09:39,968 --> 01:09:41,729
[Reporter] Cattle,
pigs, and sheep

1389
01:09:41,763 --> 01:09:44,663
are the latest raw
material for this man.

1390
01:09:44,697 --> 01:09:48,253
He calls himself Banksy, but
that's not his real name.

1391
01:09:48,287 --> 01:09:50,186
He's a graffiti artist,

1392
01:09:50,220 --> 01:09:53,741
and he believes that
anonymity is essential.

1393
01:09:53,775 --> 01:09:56,813
[Banksy] I'm disguised
because you can't ...

1394
01:09:58,263 --> 01:10:01,438
You can't really be a graffiti
writer and then go public.

1395
01:10:02,646 --> 01:10:05,373
It's like the two things
don't quite go together.

1396
01:10:07,133 --> 01:10:09,757
[Narrator] The event caused
a sensation in London,

1397
01:10:09,791 --> 01:10:12,035
with celebrities
jostling to get in

1398
01:10:12,069 --> 01:10:13,933
and the media crowning Banksy

1399
01:10:13,968 --> 01:10:16,902
the UK's most feted
underground artist.

1400
01:10:17,937 --> 01:10:19,732
The Turf War show was hilarious.

1401
01:10:19,767 --> 01:10:23,978
It was like in this huge
squat up on Kingston Road.

1402
01:10:24,012 --> 01:10:25,151
And the thing with
Banksy is like,

1403
01:10:25,186 --> 01:10:26,739
even in those early shows,

1404
01:10:28,396 --> 01:10:30,743
wherever he did it,
in whatever period,

1405
01:10:30,778 --> 01:10:33,159
they were always
supremely well-attended.

1406
01:10:33,194 --> 01:10:35,334
It was just chaotic.

1407
01:10:36,439 --> 01:10:39,165
There were queues outside,

1408
01:10:39,200 --> 01:10:42,755
models trying to get in,
everyone trying to get in.

1409
01:10:42,790 --> 01:10:44,757
And the RSPCA was tipped off

1410
01:10:44,792 --> 01:10:47,450
that he was being
cruel to animals.

1411
01:10:47,484 --> 01:10:50,073
[Reporter] Banksy
fears not the critics

1412
01:10:50,107 --> 01:10:52,765
but the inspector
from the RSPCA,

1413
01:10:52,800 --> 01:10:56,321
who's come to see if the
animals are being maltreated.

1414
01:10:56,355 --> 01:11:00,221
The farmer from Somerset whoowns the animals has no qualms,

1415
01:11:00,256 --> 01:11:03,811
but will the animal
welfare man agree?

1416
01:11:03,845 --> 01:11:07,159
The artist and the
farmer have assured me

1417
01:11:07,193 --> 01:11:09,195
that they've been painted

1418
01:11:09,230 --> 01:11:13,924
using animal identification
sprays, which is non-toxic,

1419
01:11:13,959 --> 01:11:16,996
washes off very easily,
so there's gonna be

1420
01:11:17,031 --> 01:11:20,068
no harm done, even if
the animal licks itself.

1421
01:11:20,103 --> 01:11:21,863
[Banksy] It's hard to make
an entertaining picture

1422
01:11:21,898 --> 01:11:23,555
at the best of times,
but at least if you have

1423
01:11:23,589 --> 01:11:28,594
something that kind of wanders
around and licks its nose,

1424
01:11:29,215 --> 01:11:31,908
and urinates in front of
you, then it's gonna make

1425
01:11:31,942 --> 01:11:33,358
the picture a bit more
interesting, right?

1426
01:11:34,324 --> 01:11:36,395
[Reporter] Despite having a
proper exhibition like this,

1427
01:11:36,430 --> 01:11:39,812
Banksy insists he's
still a graffiti artist.

1428
01:11:40,675 --> 01:11:43,022
There are graffiti artists
trying to climb into the pound

1429
01:11:43,057 --> 01:11:45,370
to spray the cow, and
trying to explain to them

1430
01:11:45,404 --> 01:11:46,854
that it wasn't actually
spray paint on it;

1431
01:11:46,888 --> 01:11:48,545
it was animal dye.

1432
01:11:48,580 --> 01:11:52,446
And then we had a
animal rights protestor

1433
01:11:52,480 --> 01:11:55,863
that came up and chained
herself to the scaffolding.

1434
01:11:55,897 --> 01:11:57,520
What she didn't know,
that all we had to do

1435
01:11:57,554 --> 01:12:00,350
was kinda undo the thing
and slide her handcuffs off.

1436
01:12:00,385 --> 01:12:01,558
But we left her there all day,

1437
01:12:01,593 --> 01:12:03,457
'cause we thought
it was a good look.

1438
01:12:03,491 --> 01:12:05,838
We gave her some food and some
drink and everything else,

1439
01:12:05,873 --> 01:12:09,048
and then she quite politely,
at the end of the day,

1440
01:12:09,083 --> 01:12:10,636
kinda packed up and went off.

1441
01:12:11,672 --> 01:12:14,088
That was the one really
that kinda kicked off

1442
01:12:14,122 --> 01:12:18,851
that kinda big show mentality
with multiple things going on.

1443
01:12:20,232 --> 01:12:22,510
You had pigs, you had
sheep, you had cows,

1444
01:12:22,545 --> 01:12:25,410
you had two vans up
on top of each other,

1445
01:12:25,444 --> 01:12:27,343
in a squat in the
middle of nowhere.

1446
01:12:28,240 --> 01:12:29,793
It was only on for three days,

1447
01:12:29,828 --> 01:12:32,037
and thousands of
people turned up.

1448
01:12:33,452 --> 01:12:36,524
This was the exhibition
that established him,

1449
01:12:36,559 --> 01:12:40,735
that meant that street
art was a phenomenon

1450
01:12:40,770 --> 01:12:42,461
that had to be recognized.

1451
01:12:43,428 --> 01:12:45,982
He just had like
this great vision

1452
01:12:46,016 --> 01:12:48,916
to be able to put on
shows that weren't

1453
01:12:48,950 --> 01:12:51,263
in white-walled spaces
and to show people

1454
01:12:51,297 --> 01:12:53,852
that art could be viewed
in a different way.

1455
01:12:53,886 --> 01:12:56,406
And I think, yes, on
that level I think

1456
01:12:56,441 --> 01:12:59,651
he was one of the forerunners
to do those kind of shows.

1457
01:12:59,685 --> 01:13:01,722
But at that point in time
it wasn't even a movement.

1458
01:13:01,756 --> 01:13:05,553
It was just us running
around doing stuff.

1459
01:13:07,175 --> 01:13:08,522
[Narrator] That
was about to change

1460
01:13:08,556 --> 01:13:10,972
with the founding of
Pictures on Walls,

1461
01:13:11,007 --> 01:13:14,424
another step in there-imagining of the art economy.

1462
01:13:14,459 --> 01:13:18,497
A print house started by the
artist Jamie Hewlett, Banksy,

1463
01:13:18,532 --> 01:13:21,604
and Steve Lazerides, with
Ben Eine as the printer,

1464
01:13:21,638 --> 01:13:23,571
Pictures on Walls
aimed to bring together

1465
01:13:23,606 --> 01:13:25,987
street artists from
around the world

1466
01:13:26,022 --> 01:13:28,887
and make their work accessible
to the general public.

1467
01:13:29,750 --> 01:13:32,994
I went to pick Banksy
up from Bristol.

1468
01:13:33,926 --> 01:13:35,514
He diverted me.

1469
01:13:35,549 --> 01:13:37,447
We went to some print place
to pick up some prints.

1470
01:13:37,482 --> 01:13:41,451
So it was a stack of
Rude Copper prints.

1471
01:13:41,486 --> 01:13:44,316
And I'm like, "What are
you gonna do with them?"

1472
01:13:44,350 --> 01:13:46,180
He said, "I'm taking them
to the anarchist book fair,

1473
01:13:46,214 --> 01:13:48,527
"and I'm gonna sell
'em for a fiver each."

1474
01:13:48,562 --> 01:13:49,804
And I was just like,
"You're an idiot.

1475
01:13:49,839 --> 01:13:51,427
"I'll buy 'em and I'll
sell 'em for 20 quid.

1476
01:13:51,461 --> 01:13:54,878
"Come on, we can do
better with it than that."

1477
01:13:54,913 --> 01:13:58,468
And then he kinda came
up with the concept

1478
01:13:58,503 --> 01:13:59,952
of Pictures on Walls.

1479
01:13:59,987 --> 01:14:02,023
And again, the whole
ethos of Pictures on Walls

1480
01:14:02,058 --> 01:14:04,474
was to make cheap, affordable
art for the masses.

1481
01:14:06,165 --> 01:14:11,170
I was always into the
American screen print system,

1482
01:14:11,377 --> 01:14:15,451
whereby you'd have artists
like Frank Kozik and Coop

1483
01:14:15,485 --> 01:14:20,214
that would design gig posters
for Beastie Boys, Nirvana.

1484
01:14:21,353 --> 01:14:23,493
And every time the
Beastie Boys did a gig

1485
01:14:23,528 --> 01:14:25,115
as they toured across America,

1486
01:14:25,150 --> 01:14:28,118
there would be a poster that
you could buy for 30 quid.

1487
01:14:28,153 --> 01:14:30,189
People were producing
these really affordable,

1488
01:14:30,224 --> 01:14:33,020
fucking cool, what I
consider to be cool,

1489
01:14:33,054 --> 01:14:36,782
pieces of art by people
I consider to be artists,

1490
01:14:36,817 --> 01:14:38,439
and you could buy them
really, really cheap.

1491
01:14:39,923 --> 01:14:41,477
And the only screen
prints available

1492
01:14:41,511 --> 01:14:45,411
that you could get in England
were like for high art.

1493
01:14:46,585 --> 01:14:48,587
And I wanted to
try and do something

1494
01:14:48,622 --> 01:14:52,108
that was more based on the
American gig poster system.

1495
01:14:52,142 --> 01:14:54,248
And that was kind of the idea

1496
01:14:54,282 --> 01:14:56,008
behind Pictures on Walls
when we started it.

1497
01:14:56,906 --> 01:15:00,323
And again, in that kind of not
knowing what we were doing.

1498
01:15:00,357 --> 01:15:05,259
So, we were making print
runs like 600 and 750,

1499
01:15:05,293 --> 01:15:07,744
not knowing that that
wasn't really considered

1500
01:15:07,779 --> 01:15:09,401
a limited edition.

1501
01:15:09,435 --> 01:15:11,334
But, you know, still
went on and did it

1502
01:15:11,368 --> 01:15:13,819
and then started
sucking in other artists

1503
01:15:13,854 --> 01:15:17,927
to work on it as well,
like Invader, Motoo.

1504
01:15:17,961 --> 01:15:20,101
So then everyone got
involved, and suddenly

1505
01:15:20,136 --> 01:15:22,552
it was like a focal
point for the movement

1506
01:15:22,587 --> 01:15:24,968
about picking people
to come and do prints.

1507
01:15:25,003 --> 01:15:26,798
[energetic electronic music]

1508
01:15:26,832 --> 01:15:28,040
You know, no one was
earning money back then,

1509
01:15:28,075 --> 01:15:30,974
so you do a print with
Pictures on Walls,

1510
01:15:31,009 --> 01:15:32,838
you could earn like six grand.

1511
01:15:34,081 --> 01:15:36,566
You know, which was a
lot of money back then.

1512
01:15:36,601 --> 01:15:39,500
So, I saw it as a way whereby

1513
01:15:40,363 --> 01:15:43,987
I could make these artists money

1514
01:15:44,022 --> 01:15:45,679
and do something that I thought

1515
01:15:45,713 --> 01:15:49,096
was kinda quite important
and showcase their work.

1516
01:15:50,891 --> 01:15:53,963
And the first print
I did was a print

1517
01:15:53,997 --> 01:15:58,554
by an artist from
Norway called Dolk.

1518
01:15:59,624 --> 01:16:03,731
And it was a Labrador
fucking R2-D2. [chuckles]

1519
01:16:03,766 --> 01:16:06,423
Really high-brow stuff we were
doing back then. [chuckles]

1520
01:16:08,080 --> 01:16:09,979
[Narrator] Although
simple in concept,

1521
01:16:10,013 --> 01:16:12,429
Banksy and Lazerides'
activities were,

1522
01:16:12,464 --> 01:16:15,053
at the time, revolutionary.

1523
01:16:15,087 --> 01:16:16,744
The street art
movement had managed

1524
01:16:16,779 --> 01:16:18,746
to bypass all the
established structures

1525
01:16:18,781 --> 01:16:22,405
for producing, exhibiting,
and selling works of art.

1526
01:16:22,439 --> 01:16:25,270
And as Lazerides established
himself as an art dealer,

1527
01:16:25,304 --> 01:16:28,998
Banksys became increasingly
valuable properties.

1528
01:16:30,516 --> 01:16:34,279
Banksy's pretty good and
kinda like working people

1529
01:16:34,313 --> 01:16:38,283
and getting into different
crowds and different scenes.

1530
01:16:38,317 --> 01:16:39,595
You know, Jude Law.

1531
01:16:39,629 --> 01:16:40,975
And all of a sudden
Jude Law was coming down

1532
01:16:41,010 --> 01:16:43,668
and giving us 10
grand for a painting.

1533
01:16:43,702 --> 01:16:45,531
Almost like drug
dealers, at that point.

1534
01:16:45,566 --> 01:16:47,154
They were great
people to buy art.

1535
01:16:48,086 --> 01:16:50,157
There was loads of cash.
[chuckles]

1536
01:16:50,191 --> 01:16:52,400
They thought this art
movement was cool.

1537
01:16:52,435 --> 01:16:54,989
They understood it a
lot more than the YBAs.

1538
01:16:55,024 --> 01:16:56,577
It was affordable.

1539
01:16:56,612 --> 01:16:59,649
And we were the cheeky little
shits running round London,

1540
01:16:59,684 --> 01:17:01,306
and people want
to buy into that.

1541
01:17:01,478 --> 01:17:03,791
We had no idea
what we were doing.

1542
01:17:03,826 --> 01:17:06,276
Pricing wise, I just made
it up as we went along.

1543
01:17:06,311 --> 01:17:10,453
So, my theory was, if
someone had 500 quid,

1544
01:17:10,487 --> 01:17:13,042
they've probably got 1,500,
so if we did something

1545
01:17:13,076 --> 01:17:15,320
at 500 quid and it sold out,

1546
01:17:15,354 --> 01:17:17,736
next time round
it would be 1,500.

1547
01:17:17,771 --> 01:17:19,945
And then it was like,
well if they've got 15,

1548
01:17:19,980 --> 01:17:22,396
then they might have 5, and
it just jumped like that.

1549
01:17:22,430 --> 01:17:24,674
And in the end, when
it started to get

1550
01:17:24,709 --> 01:17:28,747
to like tens of thousands of
pounds, I could only do it

1551
01:17:28,782 --> 01:17:31,992
if I didn't say the full
amount that the piece cost.

1552
01:17:32,026 --> 01:17:34,132
It was like, "Oh Christ, if
I tell 'em it's 15 grand,

1553
01:17:34,166 --> 01:17:36,168
"I'm just gonna
burst out laughing."

1554
01:17:36,203 --> 01:17:38,205
And it was like,
"Yeah, mate, it's 15."

1555
01:17:39,689 --> 01:17:42,692
We made it quite difficult
for people to buy pieces.

1556
01:17:42,727 --> 01:17:45,350
And like I said, it was
like, I had no plan.

1557
01:17:45,384 --> 01:17:47,628
I never wanted to
open a gallery.

1558
01:17:47,663 --> 01:17:50,424
It was just, we just
made it up. [chuckles]

1559
01:17:51,011 --> 01:17:54,566
[curious electronic music]

1560
01:18:01,746 --> 01:18:04,783
That winter, Banksy
entered Tate Britain,

1561
01:18:04,818 --> 01:18:06,440
placed a painting on the wall,

1562
01:18:06,474 --> 01:18:08,304
and walked into
the history books.

1563
01:18:09,512 --> 01:18:11,928
With the incursions in
museums and galleries

1564
01:18:11,963 --> 01:18:13,619
and other stunts that followed,

1565
01:18:13,654 --> 01:18:17,727
Banksy pioneered a new type
of illegal performance art,

1566
01:18:17,762 --> 01:18:20,281
and, in doing so, he
began to transcend

1567
01:18:20,316 --> 01:18:21,593
the street art scene.

1568
01:18:24,423 --> 01:18:28,876
What really set him up was
his interventions in galleries

1569
01:18:28,911 --> 01:18:31,568
in New York, London, and Paris.

1570
01:18:33,018 --> 01:18:36,884
That suddenly gave him the
publicity that was needed

1571
01:18:36,919 --> 01:18:40,577
to make him into an artist
that everyone knew who he was.

1572
01:18:43,753 --> 01:18:44,720
Careful planning.

1573
01:18:45,859 --> 01:18:47,688
Those were almost
like a bank job.

1574
01:18:47,723 --> 01:18:49,690
You know, you'd sit
and plan it out,

1575
01:18:49,725 --> 01:18:51,278
work out how it was gonna work.

1576
01:18:51,312 --> 01:18:55,178
If you think that he took
a box that was this size,

1577
01:18:55,213 --> 01:18:57,560
with a freeze-dried rat in it,

1578
01:18:58,803 --> 01:19:00,839
drilled into the wall
in the middle of the day

1579
01:19:00,874 --> 01:19:04,084
in the Natural History
Museum during half term,

1580
01:19:04,118 --> 01:19:05,810
and put this piece
up on the wall.

1581
01:19:07,121 --> 01:19:09,054
It's not just Banksy;
there is a team,

1582
01:19:09,089 --> 01:19:11,781
although it's Banksy
who's got to face up

1583
01:19:11,816 --> 01:19:13,990
to putting a picture on the wall

1584
01:19:14,025 --> 01:19:15,543
and possibly getting arrested.

1585
01:19:17,994 --> 01:19:21,895
One of the gallery
invasions, some of his team

1586
01:19:21,929 --> 01:19:24,794
staged a sort of gay
tiff, an argument going on

1587
01:19:24,829 --> 01:19:26,796
so that there was a disturbance,

1588
01:19:26,831 --> 01:19:30,144
which allowed Banksy to go
an put a picture on the wall.

1589
01:19:31,318 --> 01:19:32,940
Once they'd set
things in motion,

1590
01:19:34,286 --> 01:19:38,808
I was always maybe like
20, 30, 50 feet away

1591
01:19:38,843 --> 01:19:40,120
kind of photographing
everything,

1592
01:19:40,154 --> 01:19:43,157
thinking there's
nothing I can do

1593
01:19:43,192 --> 01:19:47,955
to tip them off or stop it if
they're about to get caught.

1594
01:19:53,064 --> 01:19:56,239
To focus attention on
somebody who was anonymous,

1595
01:19:56,274 --> 01:19:58,897
and so you've got a
dilemma there immediately.

1596
01:19:58,932 --> 01:20:03,833
It also confirmed hisrelationship with the art world,

1597
01:20:03,868 --> 01:20:06,698
as being an outside,
as someone has not,

1598
01:20:06,732 --> 01:20:10,046
didn't have access to galleries.

1599
01:20:10,081 --> 01:20:14,223
It owes a lot to graffiti,
going into Disneyland

1600
01:20:14,257 --> 01:20:18,468
and handcuffing a Guantanamo
prisoner to the railings

1601
01:20:18,503 --> 01:20:20,367
and getting out
without getting caught.

1602
01:20:20,401 --> 01:20:23,404
The stakes are much higher, andthe audience is much bigger.

1603
01:20:24,336 --> 01:20:26,960
But the thinking is
largely the same, I think.

1604
01:20:27,684 --> 01:20:30,791
I think Banksy was becoming a
different kind of an artist.

1605
01:20:30,826 --> 01:20:35,071
He became this sort of
hybrid street artist,

1606
01:20:35,106 --> 01:20:40,111
social activist, ad hacker,
graffiti guy all into one.

1607
01:20:43,839 --> 01:20:46,703
[intriguing music]

1608
01:20:51,501 --> 01:20:53,883
[Narrator] In 2005,
Banksy embarked

1609
01:20:53,918 --> 01:20:56,817
on his most eye-catching
project yet.

1610
01:20:56,852 --> 01:21:00,165
Accompanied by Ben Eine, he
traveled to the Middle East

1611
01:21:00,200 --> 01:21:01,822
to paint the West Bank barrier.

1612
01:21:03,513 --> 01:21:06,723
A controversial wall erected
by the Israeli government,

1613
01:21:06,758 --> 01:21:09,243
the barrier separated the
Palestinian territories

1614
01:21:09,278 --> 01:21:13,213
from Israel and was felt by
many to be a supreme injustice

1615
01:21:13,247 --> 01:21:15,491
aimed at annexing
Palestinian land

1616
01:21:15,525 --> 01:21:18,011
and subjugating the population.

1617
01:21:18,045 --> 01:21:21,083
[blasting]

1618
01:21:21,117 --> 01:21:22,636
In traveling to Palestine,

1619
01:21:22,670 --> 01:21:25,259
a territory under
military occupation,

1620
01:21:25,294 --> 01:21:27,710
Banksy combined his
flair for highly-planned,

1621
01:21:27,744 --> 01:21:30,575
audacious and risky
stunts with his use

1622
01:21:30,609 --> 01:21:33,578
of striking imagery and
sense of social mission.

1623
01:21:34,268 --> 01:21:36,512
The collection of
paintings that resulted

1624
01:21:36,546 --> 01:21:38,583
were met with
international acclaim.

1625
01:21:39,584 --> 01:21:41,827
We wanted to got to Brazil,

1626
01:21:41,862 --> 01:21:43,657
because none of us
had been to Brazil,

1627
01:21:43,691 --> 01:21:46,108
and the girls were
really fit in Brazil,

1628
01:21:46,142 --> 01:21:48,696
and all of our girlfriends
put their foot down,

1629
01:21:48,731 --> 01:21:51,458
said no, you're not
going to go to Brazil.

1630
01:21:51,492 --> 01:21:54,254
There was three
of us at the time.

1631
01:21:54,288 --> 01:21:56,049
No, you're not
gonna go to Brazil.

1632
01:21:56,083 --> 01:21:58,914
That's ridiculous. [chuckles]

1633
01:21:58,948 --> 01:22:02,745
So, fundamentally, the
biggest wall in the world,

1634
01:22:02,779 --> 01:22:04,367
and it seemed like something

1635
01:22:04,402 --> 01:22:06,991
that was continually in the
press, always a problem,

1636
01:22:08,130 --> 01:22:10,304
the most religious ...

1637
01:22:11,202 --> 01:22:13,929
crazy, insane hotspot,

1638
01:22:15,861 --> 01:22:17,898
and the biggest
wall in the world.

1639
01:22:17,933 --> 01:22:20,728
So, as a bunch of people
that liked painting walls,

1640
01:22:21,660 --> 01:22:22,765
perfect destination.

1641
01:22:23,939 --> 01:22:25,733
I think we probably
spent two weeks there,

1642
01:22:25,768 --> 01:22:27,666
and we painted a load of stuff,

1643
01:22:27,701 --> 01:22:29,875
and none of it was
particularly political,

1644
01:22:31,256 --> 01:22:33,741
which is why we got away
with what we got away with.

1645
01:22:35,157 --> 01:22:36,848
We'd go and paint, and the
soldiers would come up.

1646
01:22:36,882 --> 01:22:39,023
They'd point guns at us,
just ask us questions.

1647
01:22:39,057 --> 01:22:41,646
We'd be like, "Oh, we're
idiot artists from London."

1648
01:22:41,680 --> 01:22:44,545
And then be like,
"Okay, go now, go now."

1649
01:22:44,580 --> 01:22:46,133
And we'd be like, "Yeah,
can we just quickly finish?

1650
01:22:46,168 --> 01:22:47,928
"It'll be finished
in like two minutes."

1651
01:22:47,963 --> 01:22:49,550
And they'd be like,
"Okay, finish.

1652
01:22:49,585 --> 01:22:51,000
"If we see you again,
we get you arrested."

1653
01:22:51,035 --> 01:22:52,795
And then we'd
drive like 20 miles

1654
01:22:52,829 --> 01:22:53,692
down the road or something.

1655
01:22:55,108 --> 01:22:58,249
The challenges were getting
stuff into the country

1656
01:22:59,457 --> 01:23:01,493
and getting stuff
out of the country.

1657
01:23:01,528 --> 01:23:03,806
Getting the photographs
and the memory sticks

1658
01:23:03,840 --> 01:23:05,773
and the laptops
out of the country.

1659
01:23:05,808 --> 01:23:08,155
Getting ladders, getting a car,

1660
01:23:08,190 --> 01:23:09,536
finding somewhere to stay.

1661
01:23:10,640 --> 01:23:11,745
We stayed in this hotel,

1662
01:23:11,779 --> 01:23:14,023
and no one had stayed
there for like three years.

1663
01:23:15,162 --> 01:23:16,750
I think we did quite
a few workshops

1664
01:23:16,784 --> 01:23:19,373
with the local
kids in Palestine.

1665
01:23:19,408 --> 01:23:22,066
So we used that as
a bit of an excuse

1666
01:23:22,100 --> 01:23:23,860
to get art equipment in.

1667
01:23:24,758 --> 01:23:27,105
There's not a Montana
shop in Palestine,

1668
01:23:27,140 --> 01:23:29,487
so you can't just get
your mom's credit card

1669
01:23:29,521 --> 01:23:30,936
and order a load of shit online

1670
01:23:30,971 --> 01:23:33,077
and it turns up the
next day. [chuckles]

1671
01:23:33,939 --> 01:23:35,976
This idea of upping the stakes

1672
01:23:36,011 --> 01:23:39,014
and challenging yourself
to go one step further.

1673
01:23:39,048 --> 01:23:40,498
He's produced some
of his best work.

1674
01:23:41,637 --> 01:23:45,468
The work that Banksy
created in Palestine in 2005

1675
01:23:45,503 --> 01:23:47,022
was very powerful.

1676
01:23:47,056 --> 01:23:50,508
The ones that I remember
are as if the wall,

1677
01:23:50,542 --> 01:23:52,924
the barrier between
Palestine and Israel,

1678
01:23:52,958 --> 01:23:56,583
were cracked open and
you could see through it,

1679
01:23:56,617 --> 01:23:58,757
but you see paradise.

1680
01:23:58,792 --> 01:24:03,693
You see blue skies, you see
nature, you see children.

1681
01:24:04,832 --> 01:24:07,801
And that really was
such a stark difference

1682
01:24:07,835 --> 01:24:11,218
from the Palestinian plight
of what was happening there.

1683
01:24:11,253 --> 01:24:13,772
Looked nothing like
what he painted.

1684
01:24:16,603 --> 01:24:19,468
Certain people were becoming
a lot more kinda like ...

1685
01:24:22,091 --> 01:24:25,439
understanding the way
that the PR machine works.

1686
01:24:25,474 --> 01:24:27,027
So it wasn't until we came back

1687
01:24:27,062 --> 01:24:28,822
that those images
became political.

1688
01:24:31,135 --> 01:24:33,033
And there was the message
behind what we were doing.

1689
01:24:35,794 --> 01:24:38,003
If Banksy painted a
big wall in London,

1690
01:24:39,143 --> 01:24:42,180
then maybe the arts
editor in the Guardian

1691
01:24:42,215 --> 01:24:45,666
would write something about
it on one of the back pages.

1692
01:24:45,701 --> 01:24:47,289
But this was one
of the first times

1693
01:24:47,323 --> 01:24:48,980
when it actually
kind of blew up.

1694
01:24:51,879 --> 01:24:55,193
I think the first
trip to Palestine

1695
01:24:55,228 --> 01:24:58,783
elevated him to being
a more serious artist

1696
01:24:58,817 --> 01:25:01,234
than perhaps anyone
had taken him for,

1697
01:25:01,268 --> 01:25:03,305
because, don't forget,
this was only two years

1698
01:25:03,339 --> 01:25:07,792
after he'd been into galleries,putting art on walls.

1699
01:25:07,826 --> 01:25:12,072
And here he was, saying, yes,
I can joke around like this,

1700
01:25:12,107 --> 01:25:15,006
but I've also got, I've got
serious points I want to make.

1701
01:25:16,421 --> 01:25:17,905
[Narrator] The plight
of the Palestinians

1702
01:25:17,940 --> 01:25:21,185
would become a recurring theme
in Banksy's life and work.

1703
01:25:21,219 --> 01:25:25,810
And in 2007, he held the annualSanta's Ghetto in Bethlehem.

1704
01:25:27,708 --> 01:25:29,917
[Reporter] The underlying
message is that people

1705
01:25:29,952 --> 01:25:34,888
should come and see the harsh
daily reality for themselves.

1706
01:25:34,922 --> 01:25:37,753
And some Palestinians
are impressed.

1707
01:25:37,787 --> 01:25:39,927
[Palestinian Man] Actually,
I like the towers.

1708
01:25:39,962 --> 01:25:41,136
[Reporter] Towers,
the little towers.

1709
01:25:41,170 --> 01:25:41,998
Yeah, the little towers.

1710
01:25:42,033 --> 01:25:43,103
-I like them.
-Why?

1711
01:25:43,138 --> 01:25:46,520
Because I see them everywhere

1712
01:25:46,555 --> 01:25:48,419
where I travel in the West Bank.

1713
01:25:48,453 --> 01:25:53,182
But it's the first time that
I see them in a colorful way

1714
01:25:53,217 --> 01:25:54,873
or something like--

1715
01:25:54,908 --> 01:25:58,877
I wish that the Israeli
army is influenced by this.

1716
01:26:00,258 --> 01:26:02,881
[Narrator] Eight years later,
Banksy journeyed to Gaza,

1717
01:26:02,916 --> 01:26:05,746
where he made a two-minute
film that drew attention

1718
01:26:05,781 --> 01:26:09,647
to the devastation caused by
recent Israeli air strikes.

1719
01:26:09,681 --> 01:26:13,858
In 2017, he opened
the Walled Off Hotel,

1720
01:26:13,892 --> 01:26:15,618
a dystopian art installation

1721
01:26:15,653 --> 01:26:17,586
that marked the
hundred-year anniversary

1722
01:26:17,620 --> 01:26:19,898
of British control
over Palestine.

1723
01:26:21,245 --> 01:26:23,937
The strongest work that
Banksy has done in Palestine,

1724
01:26:23,971 --> 01:26:27,182
for me, is the Walled
Off Hotel, in Bethlehem.

1725
01:26:28,355 --> 01:26:31,979
This is a hotel that
he calls "the hotel

1726
01:26:32,014 --> 01:26:34,050
with the worst
view in the world,"

1727
01:26:34,085 --> 01:26:36,915
in that it overlooks
the Israeli wall

1728
01:26:36,950 --> 01:26:39,780
that they built to separate
Palestine from Israel.

1729
01:26:44,682 --> 01:26:49,687
It mocks that whole
Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

1730
01:26:52,724 --> 01:26:56,003
You walk in, and
there is a reflection

1731
01:26:56,038 --> 01:26:58,109
of the part that
Britain played in this,

1732
01:26:58,143 --> 01:27:00,629
with the sort of colonial lobby

1733
01:27:00,663 --> 01:27:03,701
with a piano that
plays concert music.

1734
01:27:08,395 --> 01:27:12,606
You've got Banksy pieces of
art all around the lobby.

1735
01:27:12,641 --> 01:27:15,782
And you then go from that
sort of colonial past

1736
01:27:15,816 --> 01:27:19,958
into a museum which goes
through the whole history

1737
01:27:19,993 --> 01:27:23,307
of the Israel-Palestinian
conflict.

1738
01:27:23,341 --> 01:27:27,449
And then you've got these
rooms, one of them painted

1739
01:27:27,483 --> 01:27:30,279
by Banksy, a couple of
them painted by others.

1740
01:27:31,694 --> 01:27:36,181
I just think, as a work of art,questioning what's going on,

1741
01:27:36,216 --> 01:27:40,220
reminding people of what'sgoing on, it's a fabulous piece.

1742
01:27:41,428 --> 01:27:42,878
[Voice Actor] I don't
want to take sides,

1743
01:27:42,912 --> 01:27:44,983
but when you see entire
suburban neighborhoods

1744
01:27:45,018 --> 01:27:48,297
reduced to rubble, with
no hope in the future,

1745
01:27:48,332 --> 01:27:50,092
what you're really
looking at is a vast,

1746
01:27:50,126 --> 01:27:52,750
outdoor recruitment
center for terrorists,

1747
01:27:52,784 --> 01:27:55,477
and we should probably address
this for all our sakes.

1748
01:27:57,582 --> 01:28:00,689
This guy, who doesn't
live in this country,

1749
01:28:00,723 --> 01:28:02,725
traveled all the way over there,

1750
01:28:02,760 --> 01:28:05,728
and took it upon himself
to make a statement

1751
01:28:05,763 --> 01:28:09,284
concerning a people
that are not his people,

1752
01:28:09,318 --> 01:28:12,563
an injustice that's not
necessarily his injustice.

1753
01:28:12,597 --> 01:28:16,946
And so, he painted
with great clarity

1754
01:28:16,981 --> 01:28:20,640
what people around the
world could imagine

1755
01:28:20,674 --> 01:28:23,228
are the dreams of the
Palestinian people.

1756
01:28:24,264 --> 01:28:29,890
It showed how powerful
street art could actually be

1757
01:28:29,925 --> 01:28:33,480
if you have the proper context
and if you gave a shit.

1758
01:28:34,274 --> 01:28:37,173
[upbeat rock music]

1759
01:28:37,208 --> 01:28:39,935
[Narrator] The paintings on
the Israeli separation barrier

1760
01:28:39,969 --> 01:28:42,351
earned Banksy a
global following.

1761
01:28:42,386 --> 01:28:45,285
And in 2006, he opened his first

1762
01:28:45,320 --> 01:28:47,563
major exhibition
outside Britain.

1763
01:28:49,047 --> 01:28:52,050
Entitled Barely Legal,
the show was designed

1764
01:28:52,085 --> 01:28:54,536
along similar lines to Turf War.

1765
01:28:54,570 --> 01:28:56,848
It was staged in the
inglamorous surroundings

1766
01:28:56,883 --> 01:28:59,817
of a warehouse in
downtown Los Angeles,

1767
01:28:59,851 --> 01:29:03,648
featured a live, painted
animal, this time an elephant,

1768
01:29:03,683 --> 01:29:06,686
and attempted to bring
Banksy's alternative concept

1769
01:29:06,720 --> 01:29:10,103
of what an art show could
be to an American audience.

1770
01:29:11,380 --> 01:29:13,727
Banksy doesn't do exhibitions.

1771
01:29:13,762 --> 01:29:17,248
The whole thing is an experience

1772
01:29:17,282 --> 01:29:18,525
I think it made a huge impact.

1773
01:29:18,560 --> 01:29:20,009
It think that it
really showed people

1774
01:29:20,044 --> 01:29:23,565
that, yeah, we can do this,
and there is no limits.

1775
01:29:23,599 --> 01:29:24,773
We don't have to go to a gallery

1776
01:29:24,807 --> 01:29:26,361
and listen to what
they say about

1777
01:29:26,395 --> 01:29:28,811
you have a white wall, this
is your space, you do it.

1778
01:29:28,846 --> 01:29:30,054
Now you could say, nah,
I'm not gonna do that.

1779
01:29:30,088 --> 01:29:31,366
I'll go do my own thing.

1780
01:29:32,505 --> 01:29:33,747
We opened.

1781
01:29:33,782 --> 01:29:35,300
It was insane.

1782
01:29:35,335 --> 01:29:38,131
We didn't know anyone,
so I made everyone queue,

1783
01:29:38,165 --> 01:29:40,375
so the only people
that we'd let in

1784
01:29:40,409 --> 01:29:42,446
ahead of everyone else
were Dennis Hopper,

1785
01:29:42,480 --> 01:29:44,171
'cause he's the only
person I recognized,

1786
01:29:44,206 --> 01:29:45,828
and Sacha Baron Cohen.

1787
01:29:45,863 --> 01:29:49,556
So it's like we had studiobosses and all sorts queuing up.

1788
01:29:50,799 --> 01:29:52,387
It was a huge success.

1789
01:29:53,698 --> 01:29:55,493
A lot of work was bought.

1790
01:29:55,528 --> 01:29:58,427
The suggestion was
that Banksy sold

1791
01:29:58,462 --> 01:30:01,775
three million pounds worth
of art, which nowadays

1792
01:30:01,810 --> 01:30:05,192
doesn't seem like a huge
figure, but then it was.

1793
01:30:05,227 --> 01:30:07,643
Hollywood royalty was there.

1794
01:30:07,678 --> 01:30:09,680
It was a sort of sensation.

1795
01:30:09,714 --> 01:30:12,407
Suddenly like everything's
bathed in blue light

1796
01:30:12,441 --> 01:30:14,167
and flashbulbs are going off.

1797
01:30:14,201 --> 01:30:15,755
I'm like, "Christ,
what's going on?"

1798
01:30:15,789 --> 01:30:18,274
And then, next thing I
see is Brad and Angelina

1799
01:30:18,309 --> 01:30:20,138
getting out of a car.

1800
01:30:20,173 --> 01:30:22,486
Now, they'd not been
seen in public together

1801
01:30:22,520 --> 01:30:25,523
for almost a year, so they
turned up to the show.

1802
01:30:27,456 --> 01:30:29,838
Suddenly, there was this
exhibition of an artist

1803
01:30:29,872 --> 01:30:32,012
no one had heard
of in America much.

1804
01:30:33,531 --> 01:30:36,189
And it was the thing to
do, it was the place to go,

1805
01:30:36,223 --> 01:30:38,433
the place to be seen,
the place to buy.

1806
01:30:39,951 --> 01:30:42,851
[Narrator] But the place to
be seen and the place to buy

1807
01:30:42,885 --> 01:30:45,267
was not where street
art had started.

1808
01:30:45,301 --> 01:30:48,304
And the success of Barely Legalbrought with it a problem.

1809
01:30:49,409 --> 01:30:52,239
Although Banksy was at pains
to ensure that his shows

1810
01:30:52,274 --> 01:30:55,691
were light years from thetraditional gallery experience,

1811
01:30:55,726 --> 01:30:58,763
they nevertheless
remained art exhibitions.

1812
01:30:58,798 --> 01:31:01,007
The original concept
of street art,

1813
01:31:01,041 --> 01:31:04,976
images place anonymously and
illicitly in public spaces

1814
01:31:05,011 --> 01:31:06,668
as free art for the masses

1815
01:31:06,702 --> 01:31:08,566
had nothing to do
with guest lists,

1816
01:31:08,601 --> 01:31:10,810
celebrity, glamor, and hype.

1817
01:31:12,328 --> 01:31:14,676
Street art is the whole thing.

1818
01:31:14,710 --> 01:31:17,161
It's everything
about site, location.

1819
01:31:17,195 --> 01:31:18,576
It is a democratic art form.

1820
01:31:18,611 --> 01:31:19,853
It's about feedback.

1821
01:31:19,888 --> 01:31:21,545
It's all these other
things that happen.

1822
01:31:23,270 --> 01:31:24,582
Site-specific.

1823
01:31:26,135 --> 01:31:27,620
A lot.

1824
01:31:27,654 --> 01:31:31,555
But then you have to take
a bite-size piece of that,

1825
01:31:31,589 --> 01:31:32,659
and that goes over here.

1826
01:31:32,694 --> 01:31:33,591
Right?

1827
01:31:33,626 --> 01:31:34,972
And so then, does it change?

1828
01:31:35,006 --> 01:31:36,007
Yes.

1829
01:31:36,042 --> 01:31:38,113
Can it be authentic?

1830
01:31:38,147 --> 01:31:39,459
Not in the same way.

1831
01:31:40,633 --> 01:31:42,220
When he blew up
here in the States,

1832
01:31:42,255 --> 01:31:45,741
it's because Angelina Jolie
and Brad Pitt bought his work.

1833
01:31:45,776 --> 01:31:47,294
That was like, whoa.

1834
01:31:47,329 --> 01:31:49,262
Who are they buying and
what are they collecting?

1835
01:31:49,296 --> 01:31:51,609
And we should
probably follow them,

1836
01:31:51,644 --> 01:31:53,266
because we have no
minds of our own

1837
01:31:53,300 --> 01:31:55,026
and we only follow celebrities.

1838
01:31:56,441 --> 01:31:58,789
Banksy said it weirded him out.

1839
01:31:59,479 --> 01:32:01,861
He said he couldn't
sell another painting

1840
01:32:01,895 --> 01:32:03,483
for the next couple of years.

1841
01:32:05,450 --> 01:32:09,040
He enjoys some of
it but doesn't like

1842
01:32:09,075 --> 01:32:10,870
what comes with it
some of the time.

1843
01:32:12,492 --> 01:32:14,252
When I was at the
airport, I saw it

1844
01:32:14,287 --> 01:32:16,979
either on the Banky show's on
the front cover of whatever,

1845
01:32:17,014 --> 01:32:20,776
like, OK!, Hello,
and you're like, wow,

1846
01:32:20,811 --> 01:32:22,882
this has just gone nuts.

1847
01:32:23,607 --> 01:32:26,471
[energetic music]

1848
01:32:29,716 --> 01:32:31,580
[Narrator] Banksy's
soaring profile

1849
01:32:31,615 --> 01:32:33,686
completely upended
the established order

1850
01:32:33,720 --> 01:32:34,514
in the art world.

1851
01:32:35,342 --> 01:32:37,137
Together with Steve Lazerides,

1852
01:32:37,172 --> 01:32:39,208
he had managed to
create a system for art

1853
01:32:39,243 --> 01:32:41,970
that was entirely
independent of the galleries,

1854
01:32:42,004 --> 01:32:44,351
auction houses,
museums and financiers,

1855
01:32:45,283 --> 01:32:47,216
but which they could
no longer ignore.

1856
01:32:48,079 --> 01:32:50,081
The phrase "The Banksy Effect"

1857
01:32:50,116 --> 01:32:52,118
started to appear in the media,

1858
01:32:52,152 --> 01:32:54,292
used to describe the
explosion of interest

1859
01:32:54,327 --> 01:32:58,193
in a collection of previously
obscure underground artists.

1860
01:32:59,401 --> 01:33:00,678
We didn't engage
with the art world,

1861
01:33:00,713 --> 01:33:02,646
'cause we didn't need to.

1862
01:33:02,680 --> 01:33:04,958
I don't think anyone
had any intention

1863
01:33:04,993 --> 01:33:07,582
to want him to be
part of the art world.

1864
01:33:07,616 --> 01:33:09,963
If you think that
most of these guys,

1865
01:33:09,998 --> 01:33:12,069
it was more of a
stick it to the man

1866
01:33:12,103 --> 01:33:14,278
kind of attitude
rather than, oh,

1867
01:33:14,312 --> 01:33:15,900
let's try and get into the Tate.

1868
01:33:17,902 --> 01:33:20,042
When did the
contemporary art movement

1869
01:33:20,077 --> 01:33:22,424
start taking notice
of street art?

1870
01:33:22,458 --> 01:33:27,015
When the press and magazines
were writing about street art

1871
01:33:27,049 --> 01:33:29,258
more than they were
writing about Damien Hirst.

1872
01:33:30,501 --> 01:33:33,090
And then you see Damien Hirst
collaborating with Banksy.

1873
01:33:33,124 --> 01:33:34,781
These people aren't
stupid, are they?

1874
01:33:39,475 --> 01:33:42,133
Street art had to be looked at.

1875
01:33:42,168 --> 01:33:44,411
Art critics had to look at it.

1876
01:33:44,446 --> 01:33:49,244
That it was work that should
be seen as proper art,

1877
01:33:49,278 --> 01:33:53,144
not some vandal just putting
up a bit of paint on a wall,

1878
01:33:53,179 --> 01:33:56,803
and it should be considered
and thought about

1879
01:33:56,838 --> 01:33:59,288
and shouldn't be
just painted over.

1880
01:34:00,151 --> 01:34:03,568
[gentle electronic music]

1881
01:34:08,573 --> 01:34:11,335
[Narrator] By 2008,
street art was a feature

1882
01:34:11,369 --> 01:34:13,578
of urban landscapes
across the planet

1883
01:34:13,613 --> 01:34:15,235
and had become the
most significant

1884
01:34:15,270 --> 01:34:17,686
art movement of
the 21st century.

1885
01:34:27,903 --> 01:34:32,528
The key figures in this
movement were Shepard Fairey

1886
01:34:32,563 --> 01:34:36,049
with his Obey poster
and his Hope poster,

1887
01:34:36,084 --> 01:34:38,086
which was a significant part

1888
01:34:38,120 --> 01:34:41,296
in the Obama
presidential campaign.

1889
01:34:44,230 --> 01:34:47,233
Faile, the art collective.

1890
01:34:47,267 --> 01:34:49,166
Sort of beautiful work.

1891
01:34:49,200 --> 01:34:51,686
Very intense, intriguing work.

1892
01:34:56,311 --> 01:34:59,728
Ron English, who
would change adverts

1893
01:34:59,763 --> 01:35:01,350
in an entertaining way.

1894
01:35:07,253 --> 01:35:10,705
Swoon, one of the few
women graffiti artists,

1895
01:35:10,739 --> 01:35:13,569
who'd paste up her wood cuts.

1896
01:35:17,539 --> 01:35:19,921
RETNA in Los Angeles,
who was more graffiti

1897
01:35:19,955 --> 01:35:21,267
but was very strong.

1898
01:35:22,993 --> 01:35:23,821
Ben Eine.

1899
01:35:29,240 --> 01:35:30,138
Pure Evil.

1900
01:35:34,004 --> 01:35:37,801
Invader, a French artist,
named after Space Invader.

1901
01:35:37,835 --> 01:35:42,426
He put these small tiles
in cities across the world.

1902
01:35:43,634 --> 01:35:45,843
People like that were
making the difference.

1903
01:35:49,813 --> 01:35:52,298
The Banksy effect has
kind of leveled out

1904
01:35:52,332 --> 01:35:53,506
the playing field.

1905
01:35:53,540 --> 01:35:56,405
So it's like, if
an individual says,

1906
01:35:56,440 --> 01:35:59,615
I can't afford six figures
to get an actual Banksy,

1907
01:35:59,650 --> 01:36:02,722
but I could go and support
this other local artist

1908
01:36:02,757 --> 01:36:04,413
or this other
artist who does work

1909
01:36:04,448 --> 01:36:07,796
that they may like that's
similar, whereas 10, 20,

1910
01:36:07,831 --> 01:36:10,972
30 years ago, that conversationsimply didn't happen.

1911
01:36:13,457 --> 01:36:18,117
Banksy truly believed that
this is an art movement,

1912
01:36:19,808 --> 01:36:24,364
and the bigger you can make
this movement, the better,

1913
01:36:24,399 --> 01:36:26,435
and if you can make
it a global movement.

1914
01:36:27,160 --> 01:36:30,543
And I think he always
tried to position himself

1915
01:36:30,577 --> 01:36:34,271
as the leader of this movement,and he's achieved that.

1916
01:36:37,930 --> 01:36:40,829
If you think about
it, since the YBAs,

1917
01:36:40,864 --> 01:36:43,694
there's been no other
new movement of art

1918
01:36:43,728 --> 01:36:46,214
outside of what the graffiti
scene has been doing,

1919
01:36:46,248 --> 01:36:49,389
and it's probably one of
the most powerful art forms

1920
01:36:49,424 --> 01:36:53,566
globally and has millions
and millions of followers.

1921
01:37:07,752 --> 01:37:11,411
[ethereal electronic music]

1922
01:37:22,215 --> 01:37:24,252
[Narrator] The worldwide
growth of street art

1923
01:37:24,286 --> 01:37:27,324
inevitable attracted
money, big money.

1924
01:37:35,711 --> 01:37:38,818
After Christina Aguilera
bought a Banksy original,

1925
01:37:38,853 --> 01:37:41,614
the price of his work
doubled overnight.

1926
01:37:41,648 --> 01:37:44,789
Banksy auctions at
Sotheby's saw record bids,

1927
01:37:44,824 --> 01:37:47,654
with sales reaching many
time their upper estimates.

1928
01:37:49,415 --> 01:37:51,382
Having suddenly
discovered street art,

1929
01:37:51,417 --> 01:37:54,316
collectors now clamored to
buy up as much as they could.

1930
01:37:57,285 --> 01:37:59,459
It was like a new
fucking gold rush.

1931
01:37:59,494 --> 01:38:00,426
It was mental.

1932
01:38:01,876 --> 01:38:05,327
We put a Faile show
on at Greek Street,

1933
01:38:05,362 --> 01:38:06,673
and people were literally

1934
01:38:06,708 --> 01:38:09,228
like fighting each other
to buy the paintings.

1935
01:38:09,262 --> 01:38:11,644
We did a Micklef
show in Los Angeles,

1936
01:38:11,678 --> 01:38:15,959
where we opened the doors,
and people literally ran at us

1937
01:38:15,993 --> 01:38:18,064
to come and buy the paintings.

1938
01:38:18,099 --> 01:38:19,583
It was insane.

1939
01:38:19,617 --> 01:38:22,551
And, you know, I think
this had been whipped up

1940
01:38:22,586 --> 01:38:24,760
by the commercial
art world as well

1941
01:38:24,795 --> 01:38:26,383
buying stuff and suddenly seeing

1942
01:38:26,417 --> 01:38:28,937
the returns that you
could make on art.

1943
01:38:30,387 --> 01:38:34,839
When people buy art today,
it's not always based on

1944
01:38:34,874 --> 01:38:38,291
what art they're
drawn to personally.

1945
01:38:39,223 --> 01:38:43,469
At the highest echelons
of the real super rich,

1946
01:38:44,608 --> 01:38:49,095
it's often because
of what is ...

1947
01:38:49,130 --> 01:38:51,097
considered valuable at the time.

1948
01:38:52,719 --> 01:38:55,101
See, that is ...

1949
01:38:55,136 --> 01:38:58,449
part of the quandary.

1950
01:38:58,484 --> 01:39:01,142
You're dealing with artists

1951
01:39:01,176 --> 01:39:04,593
who essentially give
their work away,

1952
01:39:04,628 --> 01:39:08,839
and now you're trying to
commodify pieces of it.

1953
01:39:08,873 --> 01:39:10,220
And that is a challenge.

1954
01:39:11,324 --> 01:39:13,050
Good evening, ladies
and gentlemen,

1955
01:39:13,085 --> 01:39:16,329
and a very warm
welcome to Sotheby's.

1956
01:39:16,364 --> 01:39:18,918
The money was just a byproduct.

1957
01:39:18,953 --> 01:39:20,747
No one was going out
to kinda make money.

1958
01:39:20,782 --> 01:39:22,266
We were just trying to keep up

1959
01:39:22,301 --> 01:39:24,751
with the people that were
buying it an flipping it.

1960
01:39:24,786 --> 01:39:28,376
So, it was like, well if
we charged bloody 250 quid,

1961
01:39:28,410 --> 01:39:29,894
and they're charging
20 grand for it,

1962
01:39:29,929 --> 01:39:31,310
then we're being idiots.

1963
01:39:31,344 --> 01:39:35,245
But I think that, ultimately,
it's been the thing

1964
01:39:35,279 --> 01:39:38,041
that's, at the moment,
destroying the scene,

1965
01:39:38,075 --> 01:39:41,665
because I think people are justlooking at it as a cash cow.

1966
01:39:41,699 --> 01:39:44,599
And, you know, all the
artists I ever work with,

1967
01:39:44,633 --> 01:39:46,877
none of them went
into it for money.

1968
01:39:46,911 --> 01:39:49,017
JR, Invader, all these guys,

1969
01:39:49,052 --> 01:39:51,364
they went into it 'cause
they wanted to say something.

1970
01:39:52,158 --> 01:39:53,884
[energetic electronic music]

1971
01:39:53,918 --> 01:39:56,852
[cameras snapping]

1972
01:40:01,202 --> 01:40:02,617
[Narrator] The trade in prints

1973
01:40:02,651 --> 01:40:05,689
and original canvases intended
for sale was one thing,

1974
01:40:05,723 --> 01:40:08,209
but after people began to
remove sections of walls

1975
01:40:08,243 --> 01:40:10,038
that had been painted
in the streets

1976
01:40:10,073 --> 01:40:12,454
and then offered them
for sale at auction,

1977
01:40:12,489 --> 01:40:14,905
Banksy moved to try
to exert some control

1978
01:40:14,939 --> 01:40:16,424
of the market in his work.

1979
01:40:17,804 --> 01:40:20,876
He established Pest
Control, an organization

1980
01:40:20,911 --> 01:40:23,845
that would issue valuable
certificates of authenticity,

1981
01:40:23,879 --> 01:40:27,159
or COAs, only to
certain of his works,

1982
01:40:27,193 --> 01:40:29,506
leaving the remainder
difficult to sell.

1983
01:40:32,440 --> 01:40:34,407
What does that artist want
to do with it, you know?

1984
01:40:34,442 --> 01:40:35,995
And I think if the
artist wants it to be

1985
01:40:36,030 --> 01:40:37,238
in a gallery, that's fine.

1986
01:40:37,272 --> 01:40:38,756
But if he doesn't want
it to be in a gallery,

1987
01:40:38,791 --> 01:40:39,481
that's not fine.

1988
01:40:41,069 --> 01:40:42,829
Banksy's dealt with
this a lot, right?

1989
01:40:42,864 --> 01:40:45,142
His stuff gets stolen,
and it's an issue.

1990
01:40:45,177 --> 01:40:46,730
But I think he's come up
with a solution, right?

1991
01:40:46,764 --> 01:40:50,009
He doesn't give it a COA,
so it really has no value

1992
01:40:50,044 --> 01:40:53,357
in the high art institutions.

1993
01:40:53,392 --> 01:40:55,118
There are still gold
diggers out there

1994
01:40:55,152 --> 01:40:57,223
that are grabbing it andselling it on the black market.

1995
01:40:57,258 --> 01:40:58,569
I'm sure that'll
last for a while.

1996
01:40:58,604 --> 01:41:00,468
But eventually, people
are gonna realize

1997
01:41:00,502 --> 01:41:02,297
that the end game's
not worth it.

1998
01:41:03,816 --> 01:41:05,576
The pieces that
we sell at Bottoms

1999
01:41:05,611 --> 01:41:07,958
are the pieces that
have been purchased,

2000
01:41:07,992 --> 01:41:09,339
they come with certificates,

2001
01:41:09,373 --> 01:41:12,894
there's a very traceable element

2002
01:41:12,928 --> 01:41:15,586
of a traceable history,
if you like, to them.

2003
01:41:15,621 --> 01:41:17,795
So, absolutely not
encouraging people

2004
01:41:17,830 --> 01:41:19,314
to remove the pieces from walls.

2005
01:41:20,419 --> 01:41:22,904
Street pieces are street pieces.

2006
01:41:22,938 --> 01:41:25,148
They were created and gifted

2007
01:41:25,182 --> 01:41:26,597
to whatever city they're in.

2008
01:41:27,598 --> 01:41:30,394
I think takin' 'em off the
street is morally wrong.

2009
01:41:30,429 --> 01:41:34,053
They were created for the
people to get enjoyment from,

2010
01:41:34,088 --> 01:41:36,607
not for like one guy to
go an pay someone 50 grand

2011
01:41:36,642 --> 01:41:38,506
to chop his wall
off and then try

2012
01:41:38,540 --> 01:41:40,197
and sell it to a billionaire.

2013
01:41:40,232 --> 01:41:41,612
It's wrong.

2014
01:41:43,027 --> 01:41:44,960
[Narrator] Nevertheless,
that billionaires

2015
01:41:44,995 --> 01:41:48,343
were interested at all showed
how far graffiti had come.

2016
01:41:50,725 --> 01:41:54,315
In 2008, Banksy held
the Cans Festival

2017
01:41:54,349 --> 01:41:56,869
in a tunnel under
London's Waterloo Station.

2018
01:41:58,215 --> 01:42:00,907
A celebration of the movement,
over 40 of the world's

2019
01:42:00,942 --> 01:42:04,877
most famous street artists
were invited to participate.

2020
01:42:04,911 --> 01:42:08,122
With an estimated 30,000
people queuing to get in

2021
01:42:08,156 --> 01:42:09,571
over the May bank holiday.

2022
01:42:12,056 --> 01:42:14,300
A year later,
Banksy returned home

2023
01:42:14,335 --> 01:42:17,959
to stage Banksy
vs. Bristol Museum,

2024
01:42:17,993 --> 01:42:20,237
his largest exhibition to date.

2025
01:42:20,272 --> 01:42:22,136
The show was organized
in partnership

2026
01:42:22,170 --> 01:42:24,068
with Bristol's city council,

2027
01:42:24,103 --> 01:42:27,244
once enthusiastic participants
in Operation Anderson

2028
01:42:27,279 --> 01:42:29,833
and scourge of Bristol's
graffiti artists.

2029
01:42:32,111 --> 01:42:35,390
Banksy's fantasy, that the
rats, the powerless losers

2030
01:42:35,425 --> 01:42:38,186
might one day get some good
equipment and take over

2031
01:42:38,221 --> 01:42:40,084
had finally been realized.

2032
01:42:42,501 --> 01:42:46,229
For me, the best of
Bansky's exhibitions

2033
01:42:46,263 --> 01:42:48,955
is Banksy vs. the
Bristol Museum.

2034
01:42:52,027 --> 01:42:54,651
This was a museum
that was not getting

2035
01:42:54,685 --> 01:42:58,586
a great deal of support
from Bristolians.

2036
01:42:58,620 --> 01:43:02,866
But than Banksy started hanginghis work next to pieces,

2037
01:43:02,900 --> 01:43:04,868
and suddenly the
museum came to life.

2038
01:43:07,146 --> 01:43:10,943
What was so outstanding to me
was the way it expanded art.

2039
01:43:10,977 --> 01:43:12,876
It brought in people who never

2040
01:43:12,910 --> 01:43:14,360
would have gone to that museum,

2041
01:43:14,395 --> 01:43:18,088
who were seeing work that
existed in their city

2042
01:43:18,122 --> 01:43:20,815
that they probably
knew nothing about,

2043
01:43:20,849 --> 01:43:22,437
quite apart from Banksy.

2044
01:43:22,472 --> 01:43:24,059
And, of course, it was Banksy.

2045
01:43:25,337 --> 01:43:27,856
It encouraged people
to explore the museum

2046
01:43:27,891 --> 01:43:30,583
and look at the collection
in ways they hadn't before.

2047
01:43:31,722 --> 01:43:34,656
Putting a sex toy in
amongst the stalactites

2048
01:43:34,691 --> 01:43:39,247
and stalagmites, and
putting a pipe with weed

2049
01:43:39,282 --> 01:43:42,664
in amongst the collection of
ceramics, all those things.

2050
01:43:43,769 --> 01:43:45,909
I followed this
elderly couple around,

2051
01:43:45,943 --> 01:43:48,463
and I was struck by the
fact they were laughing.

2052
01:43:48,498 --> 01:43:50,948
And it's not very often
you hear people laugh

2053
01:43:50,983 --> 01:43:52,985
in art shows and museums.

2054
01:43:54,089 --> 01:43:57,265
Putting a cordon around
the gypsy caravan,

2055
01:43:57,300 --> 01:43:59,025
it made a serious
point about Travelers

2056
01:43:59,060 --> 01:44:01,096
and the plight of
Travelers in the way

2057
01:44:01,131 --> 01:44:04,376
that that caravan that's
been in Bristol Museum

2058
01:44:04,410 --> 01:44:07,033
for many, many years has
never been able to do,

2059
01:44:07,068 --> 01:44:08,725
just changing and
flipping the context.

2060
01:44:11,831 --> 01:44:14,282
The combination of
the animatronics,

2061
01:44:14,317 --> 01:44:17,872
the interventions in
the museum itself,

2062
01:44:17,906 --> 01:44:20,530
the large-scale models
like the ice cream van

2063
01:44:20,564 --> 01:44:23,981
and the gallery space
which is always used

2064
01:44:24,016 --> 01:44:26,777
as a gallery space in the
museum being used as a kind of

2065
01:44:26,812 --> 01:44:31,299
a retrospective, complete
with a mock-up of his studio.

2066
01:44:31,334 --> 01:44:36,339
It was a really bold statement
about where he'd got to.

2067
01:44:36,960 --> 01:44:38,513
And to do it in
Bristol was great.

2068
01:44:38,548 --> 01:44:40,412
It was really good for Bristol.

2069
01:44:42,241 --> 01:44:44,623
[Narrator] The concept
of popularizing art,

2070
01:44:44,657 --> 01:44:46,694
making it accessible
to the public

2071
01:44:46,728 --> 01:44:48,454
by rethinking the context,

2072
01:44:48,489 --> 01:44:51,250
started to inform
much of Banksy's work,

2073
01:44:51,285 --> 01:44:53,908
which moved away from the
amusing street stencils

2074
01:44:53,942 --> 01:44:56,428
and into landmark
artistic statements

2075
01:44:56,462 --> 01:44:58,361
along the lines
of Bristol Museum.

2076
01:45:00,363 --> 01:45:05,160
In 2015, he opened Dismaland
in Weston-super-Mare,

2077
01:45:05,195 --> 01:45:08,163
a seafront holiday resort
not far from Bristol

2078
01:45:08,198 --> 01:45:10,096
that had fallen on hard times.

2079
01:45:11,650 --> 01:45:15,309
Billed as a bemusement
park, Dismaland was visited

2080
01:45:15,343 --> 01:45:18,967
by over 150,000 people
in little over a month,

2081
01:45:19,002 --> 01:45:21,556
all of whom had come to
see an art exhibition

2082
01:45:21,591 --> 01:45:25,974
reimagined as a drab, miserable,and hostile amusement park.

2083
01:45:27,700 --> 01:45:30,393
Dismaland was a legacy of
the museum show, I think.

2084
01:45:30,427 --> 01:45:33,775
It exemplified so much
of what Banksy's about:

2085
01:45:33,810 --> 01:45:36,330
the humor, the
quality, the ambition.

2086
01:45:37,607 --> 01:45:40,161
It was also partly about
the artists he really liked.

2087
01:45:40,195 --> 01:45:43,751
He had 60 other artists
exhibiting there.

2088
01:45:44,372 --> 01:45:46,132
What was interesting
was that they came

2089
01:45:46,167 --> 01:45:48,721
from across the world from
where Banksy had met them,

2090
01:45:48,756 --> 01:45:52,173
so you had Palestinians
and you had Israelis.

2091
01:45:52,207 --> 01:45:54,451
Everyone was seeing art
they'd never seen before.

2092
01:45:54,486 --> 01:45:57,903
There were all kinds of
things going on there.

2093
01:45:57,937 --> 01:46:01,734
The union banners, the squattingand housing action groups

2094
01:46:01,769 --> 01:46:04,254
which were represented
there, the annexist groups

2095
01:46:04,288 --> 01:46:07,740
which were represented there,
it was a wonderful thing.

2096
01:46:07,775 --> 01:46:09,673
I don't think any of
us really expected him

2097
01:46:09,708 --> 01:46:14,057
to create something quite
as magnificent as Dismaland.

2098
01:46:15,265 --> 01:46:17,716
It's as if Jeff Koons
was a graffiti writer.

2099
01:46:18,889 --> 01:46:19,580
Right?

2100
01:46:19,614 --> 01:46:21,409
And he had the resources to do

2101
01:46:21,444 --> 01:46:23,480
whatever the fuck
he wanted to do.

2102
01:46:23,515 --> 01:46:24,619
Well, that was Banksy.

2103
01:46:26,241 --> 01:46:30,038
In his core, he was still
a street graffiti guy

2104
01:46:30,073 --> 01:46:33,283
who understood
communication to the masses.

2105
01:46:33,317 --> 01:46:36,251
High production value
for the common man.

2106
01:46:37,425 --> 01:46:40,980
He's become the people's
favorite artist.

2107
01:46:41,015 --> 01:46:43,500
He is more, though, than
just a people's artist;

2108
01:46:43,535 --> 01:46:47,815
he's an artist who isquestioning the whole art scene,

2109
01:46:47,849 --> 01:46:50,680
which we are all
part of, actually,

2110
01:46:50,714 --> 01:46:54,891
and the whole money for art,
and the whole glamor for art,

2111
01:46:54,925 --> 01:46:56,996
and the way art is being used

2112
01:46:57,031 --> 01:46:59,999
as more than just
pictures on walls.

2113
01:47:00,034 --> 01:47:03,037
And it's that questioning
and that clever questioning

2114
01:47:03,071 --> 01:47:04,383
that I think is important.

2115
01:47:05,867 --> 01:47:07,697
[Narrator] Those questions
surface persistently

2116
01:47:07,731 --> 01:47:09,457
in Banksy's art.

2117
01:47:09,492 --> 01:47:13,288
His 2010 documentary film,
Exit Through the Gift Shop,

2118
01:47:13,323 --> 01:47:15,152
explored how art is marketed

2119
01:47:15,187 --> 01:47:18,466
by transforming a clothes shop
owner named Thierry Guetta

2120
01:47:18,501 --> 01:47:20,295
into a celebrated street artist

2121
01:47:20,330 --> 01:47:22,056
from whom people
were prepared to buy

2122
01:47:22,090 --> 01:47:24,230
millions of dollars of his work,

2123
01:47:24,265 --> 01:47:25,818
irrespective of its quality.

2124
01:47:28,787 --> 01:47:31,168
Conversely, a stall
that Banksy set up

2125
01:47:31,203 --> 01:47:33,654
in New York's Central
Park, offering his work

2126
01:47:33,688 --> 01:47:37,036
for $60 a piece failed
to do much business.

2127
01:47:38,590 --> 01:47:40,868
Without the art
industry to hype them,

2128
01:47:40,902 --> 01:47:43,146
the canvases were
largely ignored.

2129
01:47:43,180 --> 01:47:46,045
A tourist from New Zealand
who purchased two pieces

2130
01:47:46,080 --> 01:47:51,085
at the stall was later able
to sell them for $125,000.

2131
01:47:52,535 --> 01:47:56,366
Through it all, he's able to
make us laugh at ourselves,

2132
01:47:57,229 --> 01:47:59,369
this machine of the art world,

2133
01:48:00,543 --> 01:48:02,441
and I think also
laugh at himself.

2134
01:48:04,857 --> 01:48:06,514
[Narrator] This type
of performance art

2135
01:48:06,549 --> 01:48:09,310
was as much commentary
on what Banksy had become

2136
01:48:09,344 --> 01:48:11,761
as it was on the art economy.

2137
01:48:11,795 --> 01:48:15,074
With his status as the
world's most famous artist,

2138
01:48:15,109 --> 01:48:17,387
Banksy was now inescapably part

2139
01:48:17,421 --> 01:48:20,528
of the over-inflated,
commercialism, fashion,

2140
01:48:20,563 --> 01:48:23,531
and celebrity of the
mainstream art world.

2141
01:48:23,566 --> 01:48:25,775
In a rare interview,
he openly wondered

2142
01:48:25,809 --> 01:48:28,502
whether he had become
part of the problem.

2143
01:48:28,536 --> 01:48:32,402
His celebrity was enhanced
by his much-prized anonymity,

2144
01:48:32,436 --> 01:48:34,300
a further paradox
that reached back

2145
01:48:34,335 --> 01:48:37,407
to the early days of graffiti,
in which the writers

2146
01:48:37,441 --> 01:48:39,996
simultaneously
sought citywide fame

2147
01:48:40,030 --> 01:48:42,274
and yet carefully
hid their real names.

2148
01:48:43,378 --> 01:48:45,588
Ever since he was
filmed at Tate Britain,

2149
01:48:45,622 --> 01:48:48,487
the public had been able to
associate the name Banksy

2150
01:48:48,522 --> 01:48:51,145
with a real figure, not
just an army of rats

2151
01:48:51,179 --> 01:48:53,975
and monkeys stamped
across British walls.

2152
01:48:54,010 --> 01:48:57,082
And yet, his true identity
remained out of reach.

2153
01:49:00,534 --> 01:49:04,227
For some, the hunt for
Banksy became an obsession.

2154
01:49:04,261 --> 01:49:07,610
Journalists, academics,
and amateur detectives

2155
01:49:07,644 --> 01:49:10,267
scoured public
records, business data,

2156
01:49:10,302 --> 01:49:12,442
and archives in Bristol.

2157
01:49:12,476 --> 01:49:14,893
Some even mapped the
appearance of Banksy's pieces

2158
01:49:14,927 --> 01:49:17,827
around the globe, correlating
them with Massive Attack

2159
01:49:17,861 --> 01:49:20,484
performances and
confidently announcing

2160
01:49:20,519 --> 01:49:22,556
that Banksy had been none other

2161
01:49:22,590 --> 01:49:24,558
than Robert Del Naja all along.

2162
01:49:26,214 --> 01:49:29,493
Others concluded that
Banksy was a phantom,

2163
01:49:29,528 --> 01:49:31,772
that whoever he
might have once been,

2164
01:49:31,806 --> 01:49:34,015
the name and mystery
were now just part

2165
01:49:34,050 --> 01:49:36,397
of a well-designed
publicity campaign.

2166
01:49:37,950 --> 01:49:40,574
Perhaps this was the
point about street art,

2167
01:49:40,608 --> 01:49:43,024
a democratic force
started by kids

2168
01:49:43,059 --> 01:49:46,580
with nothing but marker
pens and spray cans.

2169
01:49:46,614 --> 01:49:50,584
The world's most famous
artist could be anyone.

2170
01:49:53,690 --> 01:49:55,589
The anonymity with
Banksy was never

2171
01:49:55,623 --> 01:49:57,280
a kind of marketing
thing for him.

2172
01:49:57,314 --> 01:50:00,663
I think it was self-preservationrather than self-promotion.

2173
01:50:00,697 --> 01:50:04,563
And I think it just became
so ingrained in his soul

2174
01:50:04,598 --> 01:50:06,220
that I don't think
he'll ever go.

2175
01:50:08,153 --> 01:50:10,914
It adds a mystery, an aura.

2176
01:50:12,502 --> 01:50:15,056
You can't really divorce
that from the work, I think,

2177
01:50:15,091 --> 01:50:16,437
in how it's understood.

2178
01:50:17,680 --> 01:50:20,786
It's a great story to
now know who he is.

2179
01:50:20,821 --> 01:50:22,270
Even when people know who he is,

2180
01:50:22,305 --> 01:50:23,858
they don't want
to know who he is.

2181
01:50:23,893 --> 01:50:25,619
It's a better story not to know.

2182
01:50:26,447 --> 01:50:28,725
The theories sort
of go on and on.

2183
01:50:28,760 --> 01:50:32,039
Researchers can spend
days, weeks, years

2184
01:50:32,073 --> 01:50:35,076
deciding this proves
it's someone else.

2185
01:50:35,111 --> 01:50:36,837
This is part of the game.

2186
01:50:36,871 --> 01:50:41,427
[Narrator] In 2018, Sotheby's
auctioned Girl with Balloon,

2187
01:50:41,462 --> 01:50:44,672
a work originally conceived
as cheap art for the masses.

2188
01:50:44,707 --> 01:50:46,156
[Auctioneer] 200,000.

2189
01:50:46,191 --> 01:50:49,539
[Narrator] It's final
price was 1,042,000 pounds,

2190
01:50:50,540 --> 01:50:52,715
a figure that had
been driven ever higher

2191
01:50:52,749 --> 01:50:54,889
in part to the enduring mystery

2192
01:50:54,924 --> 01:50:57,443
surrounding the world's
most famous artist

2193
01:50:57,478 --> 01:51:00,308
and the persistent question
of who he might be.

2194
01:51:04,036 --> 01:51:04,830
[bangs gavel]

2195
01:51:04,865 --> 01:51:05,693
[cheering]

2196
01:51:05,728 --> 01:51:06,970
As the gavel came down,

2197
01:51:07,005 --> 01:51:09,179
and London's elite
started to applaud,

2198
01:51:09,214 --> 01:51:11,734
the public finally
received their answer.

2199
01:51:13,218 --> 01:51:14,564
[beeping]

2200
01:51:14,598 --> 01:51:15,979
He was a vandal.

2201
01:51:16,014 --> 01:51:18,361
[commotion]

2202
01:51:36,517 --> 01:51:37,414
[Auctioneer] Ladies
and gentlemen,

2203
01:51:37,449 --> 01:51:38,657
we are in the middle here.

2204
01:51:38,692 --> 01:51:41,556
Sorry, if I could
have your attention.

2205
01:51:49,772 --> 01:51:52,982
[energetic rock music]