Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Annual Conference 2014

“The Banksy Effect:” The Rise of Street Art in Contemporary Visual Culture
Sabrina DeTurk, Ph.D.

Abstract:

Demonstrations against the Iraq War, the Occupy movement, the Arab Spring, calls for an end to
violence in the Middle East – the protest movements of the first decade of the 21st century have
not only risen from the streets; they have been inscribed on them. Once relegated to subway
trains, abandoned buildings, and seemingly inaccessible areas of the urban landscape, street art
has emerged in recent years as a critical element in political commentary on current events.
Arguably, this is in no small part due to the unprecedented rise of Banksy, a “writer” from the
English city of Bristol whose anonymity, ubiquity and creativity have garnered him an
international following among art cognoscenti and the general public around the world. In this
paper, I explore Banksy’s contributions to contemporary social and political commentary
whether through his early, stealth interventions in the public space or his more recent spectacular
performances such as the 2009 exhibit “Banksy vs the Bristol Museum” or his 2013 residency in
New York City. I then consider ways in which Banksy’s fame and at least tacit validation from
cultural and governmental institutions may be paving the way for other street artists to emerge as
key players in current protest movements. The resurgence of this most grassroots form of
aesthetic intervention in the public sphere offers an opportunity to consider how the
democratization of discourse through the rise of social media may have its visual counterpart in
the democratization of the image through street art.

The pseudonymous English street artist known as Banksy has become a cultural

phenomenon in the two decades or so since he emerged onto the scene in Bristol, a port city in

the Southwest of England. Originally a low-key figure, he caught attention for his well-crafted,

stenciled works of street art that typically provided a satirical commentary on contemporary

politics and social issues or just on life itself. Early works ranged from the somewhat enigmatic,

such as Mona Lisa with a rocket launcher or a little girl watching her balloon drift away, to overt

commentary on issues such as the ubiquity of CCTV surveillance in the United Kingdom. In

addition to his street works, Banksy also gained notoriety for his museum “interventions” which

he performed occasionally for several years following his 2003 incursion into the Tate Britain,
where he affixed a new work to the wall in one of the museum’s 18th century galleries. The

painting, a non-descript landscape scene altered by Banksy, was given the title Crimewatch UK

Has Ruined the Countryside for All of Us and alongside it the artist pasted a wall label with a

caption reading in part “It can be argued that defacing such an idyllic scene reflects the way our

nation has been vandalized by its obsession with crime and paedophilia, where any visit to a

secluded beauty spot now feels like it may result in being molested or finding discarded body

parts.” (Ellsworth-Jones, 10-11) Later interventions took a more humorous tone, as with his

addition to the British Museum’s collection of artifacts from Roman Britain: a piece of rock on

which Banksy depicted a caveman pushing (or pursuing) a shopping cart. The witty wall text

read, in part, “This finely preserved example of primitive art dates from the Post-Catatonic era

and is thought to depict early man venturing towards the out-of-town hunting grounds…Most art

of this type has unfortunately not survived. The majority is destroyed by zealous municipal

officials who fail to recognise the artistic merit and historical value of daubing on walls.”

(Ellsworth-Jones, 17; Wall and Piece, 185)

While continuing to produce street art in England and abroad, throughout the first decade

of the 21st century Banksy also built a thriving studio practice, creating prints and canvases that

skyrocketed in value as the decade progressed. His altered Damien Hirst painting, Keep it

Spotless, sold at a charity auction in February 2008 for $1.8 million – a record for the artist.

While this astronomical pricetag was undoubtedly influenced by the fact that the proceeds from

the sale went to charity and that the work incorporated a painting by Hirst (whose works

regularly sell for millions), more typical works by Banksy still fetch in the $300,000 - $500,000

range at auction. (Ellsworth-Jones, 181-184) While in some way stemming from the graffiti art

popularized in the 1970s and 80s and brought into galleries by artists such as Keith Haring and
Jean Michel Basquiat, Banksy’s work employs a style that seems to confound curatorial and

critical categories while simultaneously engendering tremendous popularity among the general

public and the cognoscenti of the art world. The 2009 exhibit “Banksy vs Bristol Museum,” in

which the artist staged numerous interventions in the museum space, attracted so many visitors

that queues extended for blocks during the entire run of the show, which was extended for

several weeks to accommodate the crowds. The artist’s 2010 film, Exit Through the Gift Shop,

was nominated for an Academy Award in the documentary category. His monthlong

“residency” in New York in the fall of 2013 received wide national and international media

coverage and sent New Yorkers and visitors alike rushing around the city in search of each new

Bansky creation. Clearly, Banksy has struck a chord with our aesthetic sensibilities and the

popularity of his work may contribute to the prominent role that street art is playing in

contemporary visual culture both within the art establishment and in protest movements.

The CNN correspondent Max Foster is generally credited with originating the phrase “the

Banksy effect” in reference to the increasing level of interest in street art since Banksy rose to

prominence in the global art scene and the rising prices that came along with that interest. In a

2007 blog post Marc Schiller of the Wooster Collective alluded to an ongoing debate over

whether the Banksy effect was actually a good thing for the street art movement and concluded

that the benefits outweighed any negative effects:

Like Andy Warhol before him, Banksy has almost single handedly redefined what art is
to a lot of people who probably never felt they appreciated art before…The fact that
Banksy’s book Wall and Piece is in every bookstore imaginable, including Urban
Outfitters, is a statement unto itself. The fact that Banksy’s work is now selling for
hundreds of thousands of dollars at Sotheby’s is a statement unto itself. And we know
that both of these things polarize a lot of people. But for us, we think that this is the best
thing that could have ever happened to the street art movement…There are now a lot of
people that have money and want to spend it on art. Their entry point into buying “urban
 art” is now Banksy. They read about Banksy selling his work at Sotheby’s and they want
to be in on the action. But not many can now afford to buy a Banksy piece any more.
This is actually a good thing for artists who are talented and want to make money from
their art because those people who can’t afford “a Banksy” are now learning more and
searching out and buying work from other talented artists who are part of the movement.
(http://www.woostercollective.com/post/the-banksy-effect)

The Wooster Collective itself, a collaborative that “showcases and celebrates ephemeral art

placed on streets in cities around the world” through its website, books and public lectures,

arguably owes at least something of its own success to the Banksy effect. The Wooster

Collective was founded in 2001, launched their website in 2003, and achieved public and critical

acclaim for their 2006 street art show, the 11 Spring Street Project, a timeline that parallels

Banksy’s rise to prominence in the contemporary art scene and his commercial success. Indeed,

“Barely Legal,” the show which launched Banksy’s career in America, was held in Los Angeles

in September 2006, just months before the 11 Spring Street Project took place in New York.

Shepard Fairey, the American street artist who would garner fame as well as criticism for his

2008 portrait of President Barack Obama, was building a career and following throughout the

decade as were artists such as Faile and Pure Evil, street art practitioners who have achieved

success by translating their style to formats such as prints, graphic design and album covers. In

addition to the Banksy vs Bristol Museum show, several other major museums featured

exhibitions of street, or urban, art. These included a 2008 show of commissioned street art at the

Tate Modern, a 2009 survey of the work of Shepard Fairey at the Institute of Contemporary Art

in Boston and “Art in the Streets,” a 2011 exhibition at the Los Angeles Museum of

Contemporary Art. The Wynwood Walls complex in Miami, which mixes high-end bars and

restaurants with commissioned street art, sprung up in 2009, the brainchild of a local property

developer. The warehouse complex, located just blocks from the heart of Art Basel Miami and

supported by sponsors such as American Airlines and Heineken Beer, firmly establishes the
nexus between street art, the global art market, and commerce. In what might be cynically seen

as a bid for authenticity, the project brought on as a contributing artist Martha Cooper, the

legendary photographer of New York graffiti art in the 1970s and 80s. However Wynwood

Walls, with its crowd of well-heeled art lovers, is a far cry from the train sheds and abandoned

rail yards where the artists whom Cooper originally chronicled practiced their craft. For some,

the existence of a place like Wynwood Walls symbolizes the negative side of the Banksy effect:

the taming and gentrification of street art in such a way that it becomes almost completely

divorced from its true urban roots.

So what are we to make of this pervasive and seemingly growing fascination with work

that at one time might have been derided as simply graffiti, not heralded as an important urban

art form? Is it just the latest passing fancy to strike the art world – enjoying 15 minutes of fame

before the next new thing comes along? Does street art speak to us in some raw, primal way

through its channeling of danger along with creative energy? Has the rise of the internet and

social media allowed us to turn the production of street art into a sort of game, with web sites

chronicling the appearance of new works and encouraging us to document and share them before

they fade (or are scrubbed) away? The answer is most likely “yes” to all of the above.

However, in the time remaining, I would like to explore another possible reason for the current

popularity of street art: its connection to the visual culture of politics and protest.

A number of Banksy’s works, particularly those done in the early years of the so-called

“war on terror,” address political themes and express anti-war sentiment. In this he was in

company with many street artists, known and unknown, whose works called into question

Western government intervention in the Middle East. However, one project by Banksy took him
beyond the streets of Europe and America and to one of the most contested and reviled symbols

of Middle East conflict: the separation wall between Palestine and Israel. In 2005 the artist

traveled to Palestine and painted several images on that barrier and on other walls in the city of

Bethlehem. In the words of Will Ellsworth-Jones, author of Banksy: The Man Behind the Wall,

“Everything good about Banksy was on display in these paintings. They made his point about

the awfulness of the wall, but they made it in a subtle way, far better than any slogan could.

They were very specific to the site; they were poignant and there was no need to walk into a

gallery to see them.” (129) I agree with Ellsworth-Jones’ assessment of the effectiveness of

these images and suggest that they can be read as belonging to a growing body of street art

created in conjunction with political protest in the Middle East.

Although street art appears in virtually every country experiencing civil unrest and

protest in the region, Banksy’s work may have the most affinity in both visual style and approach

to its subject with some of the street art produced during and after the 25 January Egyptian

revolution of 2011. Lina Khatib of Stanford University notes that the use of street art in the 25

January revolution was particularly significant in that it “made visual expression a key tool in

political protest, catalysing the use of street art in other revolutions that followed in the Arab

world, such as in Libya and Syria.” (299) The images reference everything from political

leaders, to martyrs of the revolution, to democracy and voting and beyond. However, as the

journalist Soraya Morayef has noted, a number of street artists in Cairo, both men and women,

used their work to focus specifically on issues of women’s rights and condemning violence

against women in Egyptian society. One of the iconic images of such gratuitous violence that

emerged from the Tahrir Square protests is that of the so-called “girl in the blue bra,” the female

protestor whose beating at hands of military police was documented in video and still
photographs. The blue bra rapidly emerged as a symbol for street artists, a kind of shorthand

reminder of the brutality of the regime and particularly of its mistreatment of women. In some

works, the blue bra itself was simply stenciled as a stand-alone signifier of both a particular act

of violence and of the systemic inequities faced by Egyptian women. In others, artists used a

free-hand style to represent the act of the beating as captured in the most widely circulated

photos of the event. The stenciled works may be seen as more in keeping with Banksy’s style in

terms of both their creative presentation and their reliance on a single motif to make a point. The

freehand works, however, are firmly embedded in the artistic style of Egyptian revolutionary

graffiti, the majority of which appears to have a more narrative quality and, often, references

specifically Egyptian symbols, both past and present.

One image which seems to employ strategies from contemporary international street art –

Banksy’s stenciling combined with Fairey’s use of stickers, for example – while also connecting

with Egypt’s history is that of Nefertiti with a gas mask by the graffiti artist Zeft. This is a

seemingly simple subject which carries complex layers of meaning. The figure can be read as a

symbol of Egyptian women’s resilience and commitment to the revolution, standing alongside

the men of Tahrir and facing the same dangers, such as tear gas attacks. The graffiti image was

then transferred to a poster format by the artist, who added symbolic spatters of blood to

symbolize the assaults against women in Tahrir and beyond. The image is thus complicated by

adding imagery alluding to women as victims of male aggression and sexual assault and was

appropriated by activists for women’s rights in Egypt and beyond.

Can a direct line be drawn between European and American street artists such as Banksy

and the street artists of Cairo and other Middle Eastern cities? Not necessarily. Can all of this
work be seen as part of global phenomenon in which street art is emerging as a protest vehicle of

choice, its often ephemeral nature mitigated by its dissemination through multiple channels on

the internet? I would argue that it can. Recent publication of books documenting the works

themselves and providing commentary on the role of street art in the 25 January revolution

suggest that the art is taking its place in a legitimate popular and academic narrative. Work by

several of the revolution’s street artists is appearing for sale in galleries within the Egypt and

elsewhere in the Middle East and some suggest that the attention garnered by street art is

promoting a rise in interest in Egyptian artists who work in more traditional media. Another

instance of the Banksy effect? Perhaps. Time will tell. What seems clear, however, is that street

art continues to reflect and influence popular culture in ways that seem likely to continue and

develop.

References (partial list):

“Banksy Pulls Off Daring CCTV Protest in London,” last modified April 15,2008,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1895625/Banksy-pulls-off-daring-CCTV-protest-in-
London.html.

“Council Orders Banksy Art Removal,” last modified October 24, 2008,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7688251.stm

“Art or Eyesore? Public Asked if Banksy’s Mural Should Stay,” last modified June 23, 2006,
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/art-or-eyesore-public-asked-if-banksys-
mural-should-stay-405119.html.

Will Ellsworth-Jones, Banksy: The Man Behind the Wall (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2012)

Banksy, Wall and Piece, (London: Century, 2006)

“In the Land of Beautiful People, an Artist Without a Face,” last modified September 16, 2006,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/16/arts/design/16bank.html.
“Your World Today,” last modified December 4, 2006,
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0612/04/ywt.01.html.

“The ‘Banksy Effect,’” last modified February 13, 2007,

http://www.woostercollective.com/post/the-banksy-effect.

“More About Wooster,” Wooster Collective, accessed September 3, 2014,

http://www.woostercollective/more-about-wooster.

Eleanor Mathieson, ed., Street Art and the War on Terror (London: Rebellion Books, 2007)

Anjali Nath, “Seeing Guantánamo, Blown Up: Banksy’s Installation in Disneyland,” American
Quarterly 65 (2013): 185-192.

Smith, Roberta. “Mystery Man, Painting the Town,” New York Times, October 30, 2013.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/arts/design/banksy-makes-new-york-his-gallery-for-a-
month.html?_r=0
Shepard Fairey at ICA Boston http://www.icaboston.org/exhibitions/exhibit/fairey/
Street Art at Tate Modern http://www.tate.org.uk/about/press-office/press-releases/street-art-tate-
modern
Art in the Streets at LA MoCA http://www.moca.org/museum/exhibitiondetail.php?&id=443
City as Canvas at Museum of the City of New York http://www.mcny.org/content/city-canvas
@149st (documenting New York City graffiti) http://www.at149st.com/index.html
City Lore Gallery (Martha Cooper exhibit) http://citylore.org/
Martha Cooper interview http://www.fecalface.com/SF/features-mainmenu-102/1362-martha-
cooper-interview
Soraya Morayef http://suzeeinthecity.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/women-in-graffiti-a-tribute-to-
the-women-of-egypt/#more-1147
Lina Khatib http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/egyptsource/women-in-egypt-through-the-
narrative-of-graffiti