DocoBANKSY (2012) Movie Script
Will I be willing to do it?
How many people around him
aren't necessarily
in the position that he may be
now in where there's,
you know, there's-there's
a few pennies in the bank...
I don't really
know why it's tolerated.
This is a high-risk game for us.
I don't think he's that--
he's that prolific at all.
It's humorous meets irony.
[hideous chuckle]
He's very considerate.
[hideous chuckles continue]
He's very considerate, which is
something to be celebrated.
All contemporary art is a
paradox.
I know Banksy.
There's always another twist
to the Banksy story,
isn't there?
And-and he,
whoever he is,
has always got other
tricks up his sleeve.
He's clearly very clever
because, um, I-I think peop--
the fact that he
infiltrated Bristol Museum.
It was a surprise
to everybody.
He must be a good man.
He must be a good bloke.
Coming back to Banksy again,
he's got empathy in his--
in his paintings
if you look right.
I never get requests to--
come and talk to me about
Paella and Stevie Wonder,
because even though they don't
give interviews that often,
they do give interviews.
The one person that I do
get asked about continually
is Banksy.
And I normally get,
um, I would say,
two phone calls a week.
Is the fact this man
has made a lot of money
out of doing something
that's basically illegal,
criminal damage to property,
is that gonna encourage
more people to do it,
or discourage them?
Plainly, it's gonna
encourage them,
'cause now they see
that it can be a valid route
to making-- well,
in Banksy's case
one assumes,
quite a lot of money.
- Hm.
- And that's
got to be attractive.
- Banksy-- top man--
puts stencil graffiti
on the map.
More power.
But maybe
my Banksy is Banksy.
Banksy's cool, man.
- Yeah?
Yeah, I know.
He's...
- Where...?
I want more of Banksy's.
Where's all
the little Banksy's?
Let's go.
Let's go straight to the bank.
Let's surround the bank.
Let's fuck the mortgage bankers
while we're at it.
You just said it.
I mean, it's graffiti's.
They belong to the garage.
We've tried to do our best,
I mean, to keep them,
but, I mean,
they will live like
graffiti lives...
in a city.
But when you think
of a Damian or a Banksy,
then you actually think--
if I say "Banksy," you say,
Uh, mysterious and he's,
he's got sarcasm there...
I think Banksy's shit.
[laughs]
Why don't you like him?
'Cause he's fuckin'
overpaid art fag.
He cuts stencils out.
Banksy personally
imported all that fuckin' dope
into Bristol.
Did he?
- He did.
I know that
for a fuckin' fact.
The whole question
about "Who is Banksy?"
is "Who is Banksy?"
You know, and-and, um,
and, um, I mean, famously
Banksy's people always say
there's a bit of Banksy
in all of us.
You know, if you ask anyone
at one of their exhibitions
who he is and they say,
"Well, maybe it's me,
maybe it's you."
And I quite like that idea.
I've never been that sure
how I got to meet Banksy.
How did I find him?
I think one of the things is
you go and interview this person
and I wasn't like in awe
because I didn't know
much about him,
but obviously
he's standing there
and you're waiting for someone
and you're thinking,
"Who the fuck
am I waiting for?"
'Cause you don't know
what he looks like,
you don't know
what he sounds like,
and, eventually,
you kind of--
this guy--
uh, his manager Steve,
turns up and he says,
um, I got a phone call,
he says
"he'll be with you
in a second."
I turn around and I can tell
that the phone call
is very close to me.
I can hear it, like in stereo,
through my phone and through,
you know,
kind of proximity.
And then I turn around
and there is Banksy.
So, I think.
And he seems, you know,
he was quite scruffy,
uh, not fantastically scruffy,
quite scruffy,
had, uh-- um...
he had a silver earring,
I think, a silver tooth,
slightly unshaven,
you know, kind of bit
of morning shadow,
a bit more than I've got,
and he drank lots of Guinness,
and I drank lots of Guinness.
And, um, I suppose
after about half and hour,
the thought
playing in my head was,
Well, this is all very well,
but how do I know
that you're Banksy, one,
and two, do I really care
whether you're Banksy
and if I'm being fobbed off?
Um, and I suppose
what convinced me that he was
was that he just
talked about himself
with kind of such knowledge
and such ease and, you know,
it-it just didn't seem possible
that he couldn't be.
It'd seem pointless
if he was trying to be--
he was-- well,
he was very convincing anyway.
But, you know,
having said that
you read things
afterwards where apparently,
he's this kind of
posh-public schoolboy,
um, and, uh...
maybe it was him,
but he was selling me
kind of his public persona
of himself which was
that he'd been to a camp
and he'd got into trouble
and that he'd ended up
in some kind of,
I think he said he ended up in
some remote town.
He wouldn't go into detail about
it,
which it made me slightly
suspicious.
Um, but then again,
maybe both versions are true.
Maybe he went to public school.
Maybe he did get into trouble.
He wouldn't be the first person
to.
You know, Banksy had some
little things up on the wall,
he was there, um,
and we just
kind of met and said hello
and he was lovely,
um, sweet, polite,
kind of shy, um,
and I didn't--
I loved his work.
I mean, I think
the image that I fixed on
and, you know,
this'll give you a sense of,
you know, that...
"Money won't change you,
but time will take you out"
as, uh, James Brown would say,
um...
he had little stenciled images,
you know, on Aaron Brother's
frames
or something,
you know, like, um, of his, uh,
Molotov cocktail thrower with
the, uh,
the flowers in the bottle.
- Hm.
- Um, and I loved that.
I think they were
300 bucks or something.
To be honest, I looked at
that picture there and I think,
"Was that Banksy?"
I'm not sure.
I think it probably is.
I was in a pub with him.
I got pissed with him.
We did a good interview,
I wasn't sure if it was him,
and in the end
I decided it probably was him.
I feel I know him.
I feel I recognize
the signature as
if he leaves an aura behind
of having been there.
And the place, in fact,
becomes quite holy, you know,
because you don't just--
it's not just
the piece of work.
You can imagine him having...
because-because
the piece of work
is always located.
The-the-- is-- 50 percent
or 80 percent is location.
So, it's all around
a "Keep Out" sign
or a "No Filming" sign
or a "Don't Dump Rubbish" sign.
You know that he's walked past
that sign every day
and he's noticed it and started
to think about it,
and then his brain is what--
until you get the sense
of standing at a place
that he stands
and viewing something
through his eyes,
um, a piece of
street furniture or, um...
and knowing
that that environment
is important to him is, is, I
think,
just as interesting
as the work.
[siren blaring]
What's that
piece of art over there?
No idea, mate.
[mixed chatter]
Could you have
clearly revealed his identity,
I suppose
you could've done,
but because we were
in such a different time that--
or you were in... I think,
if-if you had it,
it'd be a betrayal of trust.
I do think one of the things
about journalism is that
if someone offers you something
on some terms,
you've got to respect that.
Um, you know, and if you're
going to challenge it,
you've got to do it
in an open way.
I mean, what would that do,
kind of get my mobile out,
go like that,
and then run away?
I just think there's something
dishonest about that.
He doesn't--
he sort of breaks rules a bit,
but he doesn't break--
he doesn't go over the line
of sort of doing it...
I love graffiti.
It's like not...
It's a tagless art.
- Yeah.
It's more, um--
Yeah, tagging is stupid,
but if it's proper art,
then it's...
- And it actually
means something instead of...
Like, people just write
rude words on doors and stuff
and they think it's cool,
but he actually
just does it for a meaning.
I like that.
- And a lot of people
will offer him things.
- Yeah.
- I mean, I-- you know,
I'm sure he has offers
all the time
of things that,
either from institutions
or individuals or
offering him opportunities,
but, in some ways,
you know, how often
he would want to do that.
I-I don't know.
But I can't imagine--
I should imagine
he's very choosy about
what he does.
I mean, rightly so,
because, you know, managing his
exposure
and his associations are clearly
a big part
of the whole image and
personality.
- There's something quite
juvenile about
Banksy's politics.
I mean, we know
that a nation under CCTV
that really gets right to the
core
of what it feels like
to be British,
um, but unfortunately, in some
respects,
if we look deeper,
we know that CCTV is probably
an unavoidable, um, aspect,
and there are times in our lives
when we've
relied on it ourselves.
You know, and I had an apartment
once,
it was always,
always getting people
forcing on their front door
and having some sort of
CCTV camera even though
it doesn't do anything,
it helps deter--
you know, it's useful.
It's not just
a clean question of yes and no.
Banksy tends
to present things as a "No!"
You know,
it's very clea-- it's very--
quite amateur, um,
"studenty" kind of politics,
but we can engage in it.
We know exactly what he means
and exactly what he's feeling,
and, um, and instantly
kind of warm to it
and get the joke.
Um, and that's
what I like about it.
I walk around
and you just smile,
and you just
look at it and you go,
"Oh, fucking brilliant, genius."
You know, it's so simple.
And it's instantly
recognizable as Banksy.
And for all these people
who are in the genre of Banksy,
you, um, and you do,
I walk around the east end
on the Banksy tours.
I go and inspect his work all
the time
and I'm very sad to see
another one disappear
or some wanker graffiti artist
making their
crappy nothing name
by destroy--
defacing a Banksy
as if somehow
that elevates them
to his status is, is just
laughable.
- Yeah.
- Um, that that's what
you need to do.
- He's got a good
kind of political message.
- He seemed to be kind
of very much on the button
of what's going on
in the world, I think,
from the time when,
you know, he went to--
what was it? The
Thunder Bay ride
in-in Disneyland
and in-in-in that kind of
figure of that one
Guantanamo Bay detainee
from that to going to the,
the wall that separates Israel
and Palestine
it's always, you know,
increasingly papist--
being stuff that's
very much on the button
and, and in the sort
of political here and now.
So I should think that
will continue to be,
you know, his next--
whatever it might be,
may be something all about
identity and unmasking,
since that's the kind of--
that's been the latest story
on "On The Story."
- He could be a secret
agent, couldn't he?
He could be passing-- he could
be passing messages
onto his art to people
all over the world.
It's great, isn't it?
- Yeah.
- Absolutely.
I mean, the thing, the thing--
the beauty about Banksy is
he's all things to all men.
Somebody turned around and said
to me said-said,
"Banksy's the nearest thing
to Jesus we've got
in this world today," I went to
him, "Do you reckon?"
He says, "Yeah," and
funny enough,
the person that said
it is an atheist.
- Who knows what makes him tick?
He sounds like a very,
very interesting character.
- Yeah.
- He sounds like
an interesting human being,
actually, just by--
because if we're to believe that
he, which I hope is true,
but again, I may be over
romanticizing the whole thing,
but if we're to believe
that he goes and gives
most of his, uh,
profits to charity,
then, wow, you know?
- Yeah.
- How can you, how
can you fault--
It's almost like it's, it's
another comeback
onto society because you,
you know, society begins to,
to sort of, you know, want
to build somebody up
and then when they're pretty
much at the top of the flagpole
you start chopping away at it.
- I mean, to me it
was the perfect,
as I said, perfect
marriage in the--
between the traditional
institution
and the city and him,
and it wouldn't have
had the same power
if he'd had done it
in Tate Modern.
I mean, it would be
completely different.
Uh, but the fact
that he wanted to work in,
in the museum in the way he did
was incredibly unexpected, I
think, to most people.
So, yes, I think it's showing
that he can surprise--
the scale of it was phenomenal.
I mean-- and, yes,
he invested so much of his
energy and resources
into that show.
It was just incredible.
They were-- his team
were incredibly hardworking
and professional.
And, you know...
So it was not an amateurish
performance.
It was a huge machine.
And, so, yeah, he-- I--
he's made me realize that
he could do whatever he wanted.
So, yeah, maybe he'll come out
and surprise us again or,
maybe he'll go
underground for a bit.
I mean, the Bristol show
was his biggest show he'd done
and certainly hadn't
show work in the UK
for years before so, not--
definitely not on that scale.
- Well, I understand
Banksy is a, uh,
an artist who's known
for his street art,
and, uh, he does
some amazing work.
Uh, whether you see it as, um,
some form of vandalism,
uh, of the environment,
I suppose
is a personal view.
Uh, the quality of his
work is outstanding...
- Um...
but my view is that, uh,
he's usually very careful
where he,
where he performs his art.
- The reason he wants
to protect his identity
is because the commercial value
that it gives to his work.
And, so,
it's very difficult to see
that his
right to a private life--
his right to a family life
would be invaded
by an investigative
journalist saying,
"I've done these researches,
and this is who I think
this man actually is."
And if that happened,
then he'd probably
just have to bear
the consequences.
- I imagine Banksy
choosing not to allow people
to know who he is
was slightly accidental
to begin with, um,
and then very quickly
looked like a--
look-- um,
it became irresistible
or charming and it must be
wonderful to be Banksy
and to be able
to walk amongst us
mortals knowing,
um, that he--
that he has this kind of,
um, massive fame.
- There's no legal right
to know who somebody is.
I mean, Banksy's problem,
for example, in some cases,
if he wants
to enforce the rights
to which he's entitled,
for example, his copyright,
he's gonna
have to reveal who he is.
Now, it may be that as a--
as a logistical matter,
it's possible to do that
under conditions of confidence
that meant
that no one outside of the,
the legal action involved,
will be able to know
who he in fact was,
but it would be an obstacle--
a-a-a very difficult obstacle
for him to overcome,
because generally speaking
the rule is that
if you come to the law,
you aught to be
doing so in public.
That-that-that law should be--
that justice should be seen
to be done in public
and therefore
the general principle is that
you-you don't protect
these kinds of-of things.
But, a-- as a,
as a general rule,
um, he doesn't
have to tell us who he is
and why--
and why should he?
We're all private citizens
within, uh, the state.
This is information
that we retain for ourselves.
Why should it be revealed?
Sometimes we're gonna
need to rely upon it
for our own reasons,
but it's very difficult to see
why the law would require--
the civil law at least,
would require you
to identify who you are.
Of course,
as a practical matter,
often we do need to
identify who we are...
...getting a
driving license,
getting a passport,
of course,
there's a difference between
saying, "This is who I am,"
and saying, "And I am
the person known as Banksy."
- Mm-hm.
- That's--
You know, he can't have
two separate personas
from that point of view
and it not make
a particular difference.
I think the people around him,
though, are very cynical.
Why?
- Um, you know, I'm not,
you know,
I do find that, um...
um...
I think they're
probably more protective
of him and his brand and the way
he moves forth than he is.
And I-I-I-I do have quite a lot
of the inside track--
I lived in L.A. for awhile
and I kind of know
that there was a big
bust-up between Banksy
and the people who worked with
him over the amount of money
they took from the L.A.,
um, L.A.-- L.A. show
that made him
so popular in America.
Copyrighters are purely
property rights.
It's all about the money.
That's the only issue
that arises.
There are connected rights
that sort of lay above it,
or perhaps more appropriately,
one might say,
underlie it-- moral rights,
so the right to be identified
as the author.
I think it says
something about Banksy
that he wanted to give that
interview.
It was-- he was doing
his first ever, um,
exhibition at a gallery,
and so he obviously want--
decided he wanted a better
publicity at that stage,
but I don't think he's ever
given an interview since.
Lot 270, the Banksy.
"You Told That Joke Twice."
And I'll start this at, uh,
85-- 90-- 95,000.
- And therein lies
one of my biggest problems
in the urban art movement
that you've got
a lot of these artists,
a lot of whom
are very talented,
and a lot of
whom I have to say
are not as talented
as people say they are
because they're trying
to make them into something
that they're not,
but in both cases
they are being cash cow'd,
they're being milked,
and that's not fair.
It's not fair for the artist.
It's not fair
for the artwork.
It's definitely
not fair for the buyer.
And any person who seems
to be benefiting out of it
is predominantly
the, uh, you know,
the-the-the dealer or the agent.
Yes, at 95,000 pounds.
It's at 95,000 pounds.
Automatically people
started saying,
"That's worth a lot of money."
And then it's like, all right.
And then you think,
uh, like that guy
who come on the telly
that same sort of week
and he covered
his one up in plastic.
And it kind of didn't look
quite right, did it Chris?
It was like,
"What would you do that for?"
You know, you cover it
in plastic protecting it,
and then you're selling it.
It kinda takes away what it is
actually there for, doesn't it?
I mean, it's there--
I mean, I've found people
who spray on top of it.
They're only doing what the
first person did,
and if they--that's kind of a
freedom, isn't it in a way?
Yeah.
- To do that.
So it's not--
it's not our business
if someone sprays
over the top of it, you know?
95,000 pounds.
Who said more than 95?
Sorry.
- 100,000.
Thank you very much.
Even the same with houses,
you know, people allegedly
cutting sides
of their houses out.
There's a reason why he would've
selected that environment,
and it just seems sad
that someone would
choose to remove it.
120, I have 130.
The interesting thing about art
in a way when you think about it
is that it's an area--
a uniquely capitalist area,
the value of the piece
is entirely determined
by how many people want it
versus how many of
them are available,
and in a sense
you could say,
"The more people want it,
the more popular it is,
the more valuable it is"--
relative term.
Of course, that argument
must breakdown at some point
because otherwise,
the best pieces of art
or the most valuable
pieces of art
would be the most
popular pieces of art,
and it doesn't
always follow that way.
Some pieces of art
are more valuable
even though they have
a very niche appeal,
but, there's--
you know, art is in a way
a uniquely capitalist
or a particularly capitalist
field of endeavor.
The value of what you do
is precisely determined
by the scarcity and demand
of, um, your products versus
the interest in those products.
140?
[bidding continues]
- When you buy art,
I mean, it's--
I mean, I suppose
that's pretty much the
the fundamental problem
that I've got is that,
you know, we're,
you know, we're talking about
all art as investments,
you know?
And don't get me wrong,
I'm not, you know,
I'm not airy-fairy, you know,
happy-clappy kind of guy
that I'm thinking, you know,
well, let's all buy art,
you know, for the sake of it
because it's, you know,
it's beautiful
and it's salvation
to our spiritual,
you know, spirituality.
And, not-not-not at all.
We live in a world,
myself included,
where you want value.
You want to know that what
you've bought and acquired
is gonna have some kind
of value in addition--
I'm talking economic value now--
hardcore money
I mean, not in addition
to all the elements
which is the reasons
why I hope people are buying,
but I also appreciate
and understand
because I did it myself
that there also has to be
an element of value
attached to it that you--
you're not gonna go
and buy something for 15,000
and then find that
at the end of the year
pretty much
everyone around you
knew it was gonna
end up being a hundred quid
because it was--
it was just valueless,
but with the kind
of artists that we represent
and work with and sell
I mean, I--
that's quite unlikely.
But it is a risk,
of course it's a risk.
Everything's a risk.
The world is a risk.
I mean, when you buy something
and there's no guarantee.
You buy property in the
middle of Bulgaria today,
who's to say
it's not gonna be worth
half the value in five years?
You know,
we can't control anything,
you know, what happens,
feast, famine, plague, war.
I mean, you know?
At 140,000 pounds
for the Banksy.
[unintelligible]
Selling for 140,000 pounds.
[unintelligible]
- Thanks so much.
- Of course.
We're in Clerkenwell Road.
What's behind us?
It was a Banksy.
I believe it's just been
taken off the wall.
How much was it sold for?
I-I don't know.
I mean, it's...
it's between my landlord
and whoever bought it.
You haven't heard any amounts
of money being mentioned?
No, I haven't. No.
When did they
start removing it?
About three weeks ago--
three or four weeks ago.
Where is it going to?
I believe
it's a private collector.
So he's gonna...
He's bought it off my landlord.
He's found some people
to take it off the wall,
and he's
taking it off the wall.
What you think about this?
I'm quite glad
it's going, actually.
It saves my fence,
'cause too many people
go-go-go-go, uh,
go over the fence trying to...
trying to have a look at it.
Mr. Banksy might pop back
and do another piece here.
Yeah, if-if-if-if he's there--
if he watches this,
could he just
put it right on my grill
so I can take them off
nice and easy?
[both chuckling]
If he did your grills,
that should be what,
at least 50- 60K,
shouldn't it?
Well, I think so, yeah.
And then that-- it's good
for your business, isn't it?
Well, yeah,
but we can take 'em down
pay for some
miniaturized ones
which would save me
a lot of backache.
I was getting a bit upset
at people
going over the fence.
My fence was all smashed
out because people
were climbing over
to take pictures of it.
In front of the steel
was all-- was all--
was all broken.
Art students
going over the top.
Unofficially off the backdrive,
I think it was by the ground.
It's in Liverpool, apparently...
What is it they were trying
to take off the wall?
I don't know.
I don't know.
He asked-- he came in,
this customer of mine
is paparazzi, actually,
and he came in and he said
he's got a friend
up in Liverpool
where Banksy
did some work up there
and-and-and he's gonna try
and take it off the wall,
but it's part brick
and part render,
so he's gonna have
more of a trouble
than these guys here.
He's gonna paint
the whole area...
Oh right.
...and make good
and provide my landlord
with-with a--
with a life-size--
I think-- I-I-I think it was,
from what he tells me,
it's about a grand.
That's not a lot.
It's not, but he--
he bought it...
Really?
- Yeah.
He just spent a long time in
trying to find the right people
to take it off the wall.
Well, it's just not
an easy job, is it?
Two main galleries
of dealing in his artwork
is obviously, uh, Laz Inc.--
Lazarides who...was...is...
I still can't work it out,
his primary dealer,
and, um...
seems to be doing
very, very well,
and, you know,
seems to be very well
put together, clever guy
and getting on with,
you know,
with supporting
Urban arts and artists,
and he seems to
be very pivotal.
He's got a good eye,
I'll say that for him.
He's got a very good eye
for what he does.
Um, and ourselves,
and of course,
there're a lot of other,
you know,
what I call "Bedroom Dealers,"
you know, the on-line gallerist
and the guys
who are sort of private,
you know, sitting on their
couches with a mobile phone
and a Wi-Fi connection to
the mobile and dealing in art,
but, I mean, then there's
one or two very nice guys
out there who do that,
but the majority of them
I question mark because
they're kind of hawking
his artwork as a--
as a commodity,
as an investment.
I mean, I had lunch
with one two weeks ago
who will remain nameless,
but it was the most
surreal lunch, I think,
I've-I've had in a long time.
It was--
Lunch lasted
an hour-and-a-half.
The guy did most of the talking.
I sat back and listened,
which is quite unlike me
as you can, you know,
see I'm nice and verbose and...
and I got back and I-I-I--
and I said to, you know,
to-to-to my colleagues here--
to my staff I just said,
"We could've been
talking about barrels of oil.
"There was no discussion
about the artist, Banksy.
"There was no discussion
about the artworks.
"There was no discussion
about people buying.
It was a
commodity-traded discussion."
You know, I buy at sixty
and I sell it at a hundred.
There was that kind
of conversation.
It was very sad.
I mean, I don't want to be...
I mean, I'm in it,
but I don't want to be,
you know,
it's not even that
we don't want to be
blatant about it,
it's-it's just not our M.O.
- Recently we heard
of someone who got their barer--
the kind of-- whatever--
their trading barer
graffitied over
and-and someone
recognized it was a Banksy
and gave the guy 15 grand
in cash or something for it,
and everyone thinks
it was terribly clever.
They cut out the piece
of work and they, um--
and-and apparently
it's worth a lot,
and I'm sure that it's still
a very good investment,
but for me the idea
of cutting out a piece of work
from the environment
that it had been painted in
defeats-- it shows a fundamental
lack of understanding
about what Banksy's about,
um, at the very least
have the good sense
to leave the piece intact.
- He paid someone
to do a caravan
and then after
it's worth 3 million.
Very cool.
96,000 pounds...
[laughter]
97,000, 98,000.
98,000 have you.
...99,000?
[laughter]
98,000 in the room...
Any further interest at
98,000? Are you sure?
I'm selling.
At 98,000 pounds.
[gavel pounds]
Thank you very much, sir.
Congratulations...
[applause]
That's 45,000 for it.
Okay, and like you said it,
that's what it is and I don't--
I'm not gonna...
I've narrowed it down to that.
That's 45,000.
This one is, you know,
that's 16 and,
you know...
But these are opinions.
- Yeah, yeah.
These are my opinions...
- Yes.
...that I think, you know,
having done a little bit
of homework, I hope,
and having had open discussions
with, you know, with my team
that you kind of build
a kind of ballpark figure
of where you think
the fair market value is.
Yeah.
But it's not about,
you know,
saying to people that
"Well, I've bought these,
I bought them at 700 pounds,
and I'm--and-and I
reckon I'll let them go
when they're
a hundred thousand."
I mean, it's...
you know, that's,
that's just commodity speak.
We're talking about,
"What do we think
is the fair price of selling,
you know, a Banksy, a deface,
a Giorgio, whatever,
to our clients?"
What's the right price?
Where is it a win, win, win?
It's not about, you know,
it's not about
killing off the client
and making as much
money as you can.
Which, unfortunately, a lot of--
especially in the consumerist
world that we're living in,
in this very bullish,
very capitalist world
that we live in
is very much about that,
is what can you get away with?
That's most people's
mantra now is, you know,
is what can we get away with.
It's not about,
"What can we get away with?"
"Hey let's look out for
the client, because
if we look after the
client will then
come back to us again
and again and again,
because
they'll feel comfortable."
And whilst we could've made
a killing for half a million
with a client
on the first time,
and then maybe if you're lucky
do another one the second time,
it's not gonna, you know--
but you'll
never see the client again.
Whereas our philosophy is that,
"Hey, wouldn't it be great
"if we can work with that
client for 20- 30 years
because we'll make
a hell of a lot of money
than, you know,
than a half a million a pop?"
In the long-term.
You know, you're actually
talking about a feeling
rather than a particular
thing, aren't you?
No, I'm an anarchist.
So when you go and buy--
yeah, but when you
go and buy a Banksy,
you're actually buying
a particular feeling.
You're buying sarcasm and,
you know, and somebody's
rebelling against
and being clever,
so, you're not actually buying
a piece anymore, are you?
You're actually buying--
it doesn't matter which one
you buy, they all got the--
you're saying
they all got the--
a lot of people kind of say
the same thing about every one.
Hm.
I don't think
he's being sarc--
he's being a bit rebellious,
and he's infiltrating
into buildings.
So you're not actually
buying a piece,
you're buying someone
infiltrating into buildings.
You're buying an idea.
So it doesn't really matter
whether it's a rat or a cat,
you-- you're buying,
you're buying sarcasm.
That's right, yeah.
And besides the artist,
you're buying
something else, right?
You're actually buying a
bit of their personality
really, aren't you?
Whereas before, wasn't it
more about buying a piece?
- The reason I made the film
was really, as I said earlier,
when someone's famous,
what is real anyway?
What the fuck is real,
um, about their lives?
Almost nothing is real.
Um, and, um...
you could see why
alcoholism and drug use
and everything is so rife.
It's just nothing...
there's nothing real in that--
not just in fame but in money,
there is nothing nicer about...
there's nothing nice
about sitting in a boat.
- I think what he does
is quite creative.
Is graffiti art or a crime?
Whether is what
he's doing right?
I mean, kids spray painting
on walls is it...?
Depends whether
they're doing wrong or right.
Already we can...
you can see
that he's changed the way
huge numbers
of people think about
A. Graffiti and B. Art.
I think he's made
a great deal of people
rethink their views on graffiti,
people that before just thought
it's kind of an eyesore,
it's Urban blight.
You know, it's associated
with bits of cities where
it's dangerous or you can't walk
around at night or whatever.
I think Banksy and others,
but perhaps chiefly him,
have changed that view and
have got so many more people
interested and
appreciative of graffiti,
you know, researching for that
book and writing about graffiti
for Venue Magazine
and Bristol, I've realized that
all different groups of society
that before probably,
why they're unaware of it
or took a dim view of it
now say, "Yeah, I like it.
"I walk around my local
bit of Bristol and look out
for what's come up next."
You know,
this is school children,
women in their 60s, whoever.
I think that's a
relatively recent thing
and it's part
of the Banksy effect
that lots
of people suddenly think,
"Uh, yeah, this art
goes up on our streets
"and it's really interesting
and it's fascinating seeing
"what's going up next.
And, this bit makes me laugh.
This bit makes me think about,
you know, the war in Iraq,"
or whatever it might be.
So I think
he's massively changed
the way we look at graffiti,
and I think he's probably--
will be seen to have changed
the way we look at art as well.
Maybe we'll have a less kind
of hierarchical view of art
that you don't
have to have kind of been to
the Royal College of Art
and, you know,
have an intimate
knowledge of art
from Giotto to Mono
to actually produce
something worthwhile
and amazingly artistically
strong and valuable.
So I think he's turned
a great many more people
onto both graffiti and art
than before.
Do you know, does the post
office control that wall?
I swear I, I swear I
really don't know, mate.
I mean, I was talking
to my managers today
and they
were saying that, um,
basically,
it's a bit of a hazard
with fans that are coming
in and out all day,
and, of course, it's become
a bit of a tourist attraction.
We went to town
around 10 o'clock
and I come back
in the afternoon.
Went upstairs, I come home
When I see somebody come back at
4'oclock the scaffold was gone
And that was then,
I thought to myself,
"Wow, that's what I like"
Sunday morning, I was going
back to church,
and then
I saw somebody put scaffolding
around the corner
and I wonder what it is?
And they come back later
about 12:00,
and I-I see--
I-I-I see somebody inside,
'cause it was all-- it was all--
it was all covered in,
it was all like,
you know, like blacked out,
and, uh, you couldn't see
what was going on behind it.
Then 4:00 come back
and we seen what it was.
I looked at it this way.
Look, they must've...
They, they--
I wanted...
There as-- there'd be people
up there with the lights red
as if it'd been
attached to the wall.
Did the post office check
their CCTV, to see whether--
to know
whether they actually
captured him
and his boys doing it?
What I heard that happened,
it happened over the weekend,
and Saturday afternoon--
Saturday night in here is dead.
All we've got is security,
probably two people.
Yeah.
And what happened,
they come in the front...
Mm.
...of scaffolding line
with some sort of,
um, paperwork saying
that they wanted
to clean the walls.
[chuckles]
Right?
And so this
scaffolding went up
and it was covered in tarp.
We're alternative
funeral directors,
Heaven on Earth in Bristol,
and it must be
five or six years ago
we did actually deliver--
uh, it wasn't at the same time,
but during the same year
we delivered two coffins
for Banksy to spray
for obviously
friends of his who had died.
Uh, one was for
a pub landlady
who had vodka bottles
and various other things
sprayed on to her coffin,
and the other
must've been a close friend.
All I can remember
was on the actual coffin
he'd sprayed
"No More Lies, Truth Time,"
and this is what people saw
as the coffin was lowered
into the crematorium.
So we didn't...
we didn't know
how mourners would take it,
but it went down very well
because, as I said,
that was what
he used to say all the time,
and Banksy had sprayed
that on the coffin.
It was older '80s.
It wasn't stencils.
He'd done like freehand, yes.
Um, they didn't
look like stencils to me,
but, um, yeah,
more the '80s style.
Are there no photos
of these copies?
There are no photos,
unfortunately, no.
I think at the,
um, landlady's funeral,
Paul McGann actually did the,
the speech at the funeral.
So...
Banksy obviously
moves in the right circles.
So there were
two coffins he did?
There were two coffins, yes,
that, um, he did.
They were just plain.
We supply plain coffins
without any varnish
or anything on them--
called in the white.
Uh, and of course,
they're easy to spray and, uh,
yeah, he did
a great job on them.
When did it strike you
that you knew that this...
did you know--
when you delivered the coffins,
did you know they were going
to him and that was kind of..
We knew that Banksy
was going to do them.
He had, you know,
he obviously had a little bit
of a name in Bristol,
um, but certainly not
the international acclaim
that he has now, and, you know,
he seems to be on
everyone's lips
and people paying
hundreds and thousands
for his works, but, um,
we knew of him certainly,
and, uh, we knew that
we had to deliver the coffins
and pick them up
without meeting him.
So we knew
it was a bit hush hush,
and, uh, it all added to it,
I suppose.
Yes, it was, uh...
So when did
the penny drop for you?
When did you sort of think,
"Okay, that was Banksy"
and that, like we supplied
it to him and did, you know,
your sort of interest
heighten a little bit?
Well, obviously when
he got more popular--
when he got more famous
when he was appearing on
the national news and we think,
"Oh wow, we actually,
uh, you know,
"we actually supplied something
that he painted on and, uh,
I wish we'd have kept them now,"
but, no, it was, uh--
they were great funerals
and the coffins were appreciated
by all friends and family.
So it was, um, yeah,
it was a great thing he did.
It may not be,
it may not be so obvious
when you first
look at it, right,
but if you, if you look,
if you look at the colors
and every area where he,
where he, where he does his
does his graffiti,
if you look at the area,
when you look at
what the social mix is
and you look at
what the-the density,
if it's high density
or high rise flats
or something like that,
he seems to be able to source
what the right color scheme is
for the particular piece
he's going to do,
what the subject matter is,
right, where he's gonna put it.
You know what I mean?
And then, you know,
and he's obviously
gone and checking out the social
mix of the area as well.
Hm.
So that piece looks...
on the wall there,
his idea for Batten Green.
Hm.
Maybe if-if he went
somewhere else,
it might not work.
It wouldn't work
at Mulholland Park.
One of the things
that gives me great pleasure
is being involved
with the Banksy theme.
But I don't, um,
I don't know whether I work,
um, I effect--
I-I'm not as
cynical about Banksy
as some people seem to be.
Um, I-I haven't invested
in the emotional...
a-a-any--
he's not my guru--
my political guru
because as I said,
his art is actually
quite childish
and his messages
are quite childish,
and there's nothing
particularly sophisticated
about a Banksy message.
It's just a very clear piece
of thinking on that, say, CCTV
or, um, or the Arms Race.
Or...um,
It's just nice beautiful
pieces of thought,
but actually, um...
it's not clever
and so, um, it's not--
it's clever in the way
it's delivered and in a,
you know,
they're more like jokes,
um, environmental jokes,
um, and they just
give me great hope,
you know, I go around
and I just feel someone has
a really nice
independent thought
and a really beautiful
piece of execution.
So I'm very happy
to be involved in that.
So when people
look at a painting
or look at
something like that,
it detracts 'em
from all the goings around.
They actually stand still.
You can't go past
that out there
no matter how much
of a hurry you're in, right,
even if you're coming home
and you've had a shitty day,
you come past there
and you get-- secret smile.
You just smile to yourself.
You know?
Yeah, no it's...
It's an incredi-
it's an incredible thing
and I find
that children seem to be
children and young people,
even teenagers,
teenagers like it
and older people
like it as well.
And it seems,
it seems to cross the age.
Are we to blame?
Are the auction houses
and galleries like Andipa
to blame
for this phrase "Urban,"
because we're trying to do
the one thing
that I don't like doing,
but I almost feel
compelled to do which is
try and give it some boundaries,
try and put it in a box.
It was done in this purpose
to show Switzerland
that the kind of open country
and open to exchanges
between different communities
and artists and...
Getting up at all hours
and going out there and...
And what happens
when the police turn up?
Yeah, definitely, yeah.
Yeah, I mean,
you speak to the artists
and they get false documents
and they show people documents
and give 'em an extra half
an hour and then, you know,
I suppose it is quite exciting
for them, isn't it, you know?
And might the...
what did it take to put the,
you know...
it's quite big, the flower?
Yeah,
there's scaffolding, yeah,
there's scaffolding
up there, you know,
and it was done
really quickly.
[mixed chatter]
It was through an approach
that his people
made to us at the museum.
So, um,
the first we knew about it
was that he rang--
well, not him personally,
but his people
rang up the museum
and I think
they tried to speak to me,
but I wasn't available,
but they ended up
getting hold of
the exhibition's manager
at the time
and, uh, said that they were
interested in working with us,
and of course we all thought
it was a bit of a joke at first.
We thought, "Oh, yeah,
who's this ringing us up saying
it's Banksy wants to have
an exhibition with you?"
'Cause it was just like--
we'd always-- we'd sort of said,
"Oh, wouldn't it be great
if we could work with Banksy?"
But never thinking that he would
work with somewhere like us.
So, um, so anyway,
when the call happened,
the first I knew about it
was that Phil came into
my office and said, uh,
"Banksy's people
want to take me to New York."
[chuckles]
And of course, in local
government museums,
this doesn't happen very often.
[chuckles]
So anyway,
I said to him, um,
"Well, they must be serious
then if they want to fly you
to New York to see his show,"
'cause he's got this...
pet store on
in New York at the time
and, um, it was going down.
It was only there for days.
So, uh, they wanted
to get him out there to see it,
'cause the proposal was to bring
the pet store to Bristol.
There's always this kind of
sense of the kind of intruder
I think, isn't there,
like going into all these
prestigious museums
and art galleries in New York
and putting up his artwork.
I thought
that was very kind of--
that was a very strong symbol
of the kind of thing he does.
It's kind of...
it's sort of toppling the whole
idea of authority, you know?
I've got every right,
every much right,
to put my artwork up in this
museum as anyone else.
So, it's a very kind of
democratic notion, I think.
Yeah, I just sent out a
general email saying,
um, how do we feel
about graffiti on the--
'cause it's quite
a nice big wall--
it's quite a nice canvas, if you
like, for graffiti artists.
And I would...
It's just a general inquiry,
would we mind having graffiti
on the side of the building.
And, um, this place
is run on committee.
So, uh, the committee said,
"Well, that's fine."
'Cause they
kind of like support him.
They realize he's a
young influxive young artist
in the area
and due to that--
I said, "Yeah, well you know.
If it's not offending anyone."
Uh, they did not mind at all.
So, um...
and then it just popped up.
Obviously, you wouldn't like it
on the side of the building
if it had been
a horrible thing.
And like Chris was saying,
you know, people are enjoying it
in the area.
So if it was horrible,
we would've been
scrubbing it off the wall
probably, wouldn't we?
Or people would've complained
and then made us
scrub it off the wall, you know?
So someone else
has gone over it,
and there's nothing there
that anyone's
wanting scrubbed off,
so that's welcome
to be there, isn't it, you know?
The first one
happens to be a Banksy.
'Cause our email
was local artists,
"Are we okay to do some
graffiti on your wall?"
And we said,
"Yeah, as long as it's--
as long as
the neighbors enjoy it."
Can you just
describe what happened
with the Banksy artwork
that is on the side
of your canvas please?
What's happened recently,
you mean?
Um, it's been defaced.
It's been, um,
someone's come with a roller
and some emulsion paint
and, uh, defaced the flag...
or the Tesco carrier bag.
Why do you feel
that's happened?
Why?
I have no idea at all.
To me, I don't know.
It seems like
pure vandalism to me.
How, um...
how did the rat appear
on the outside of the building?
Uh, the rat, I'm pretty sure is
a prank, actually, to be honest.
I'm not convinced
it's by him at all.
Yes, we had this party,
I think, if I remember
where the project
was a project called
"Regeneration,"
and the idea was really
to pass the new century over
to some young artists
and the topic
was mostly graffitis.
And this, uh,
this show was followed,
I mean, this lounge,
it was a rave party actually,
uh, where a lot
of young people were invited,
and, uh, this rave party
was followed by
a kind of conference
on the legality of graffitis.
And the project
went over and the--
we-we-we kept the graffitis
in the garage
without really thinking
of what was going to
happen or whatever.
The guardian had
mentioned as well
that we were due
to whitewash the graffiti
and that was
definitely a plan,
but I think
the ambassador at the time
thought it was rather
nice to keep.
So they burned whitewash.
- We seem to be on the, uh,
the Banksy tourist trail here,
'cause we have, uh,
one of Banksy's works
two doors down from us,
and, um, I think Bristol
has become a bit of a mecca
for Banksy fans.
- What's the piece
that's just down from you then?
- Um, that is the rifleman
aiming somewhere
with, um, a boy
standing behind him
just about to pop a,
paper bag, which, uh,
a bit of controversy
when it first came
since it's right opposite
the children's hospital,
but, um...
Banksy being Banksy,
I think people
loved it more than loathed it.
Do you like it?
I like it, yes.
I like him, um,
I like his art, yeah.
What do you think
he adds to the city?
Uh...
A bit of fun.
A bit of, you know, I mean,
we have problem with--
problems with ordinary,
uh, people who spray things,
but this is, um,
we call it "art,"
but it's, it's got a message,
it's fun, it makes you think.
So, I think it's, uh,
a good addition to the city.
What would you say to the media
who want to reveal it?
Party poopers and
they're boring.
I suppose
that graffiti art is-is-
is something that kind
of empowers a lot of people
because they don't
wait for galleries to, you know,
to allow them exhibit.
You just go out and-and-and-
and do your thing and so
I guess when
one person does it,
um, encourages
other people to do it.
- He does direct action
as well, doesn't he?
'Cause he walks in
to the Tate and stuff
and just puts his work up.
- Yeah.
Yeah, people like that,
don't they?
'Cause it makes them feel like
they could, they could be doing
something like that too,
everyone can do that.
And he's not even using
his name sometimes, is he?
He's just doing it
and it just happens to be him.
And that means that you could--
anyone could do it.
You could do it.
Chris could do it.
I think maybe
that's why people like it.
It gives them a bit
of glimmer of something
they could be doing, too.
Don't need to be someone who's
got a name or got contacts.
You can just be
clever and do it.
A strength
has always been the idea...
I just remember
speaking to one
Bristol artist who said,
you know,
"I thought of similar things--
thought of doing similar things
"to the kind of things
that Banksy's done,
but I haven't had those ideas.
Or if I have,
I haven't done them."
And that's the thing
with Banksy.
I think it's-
it's incredibly crisp, clear,
witty, subversive ideas,
and then
it's just the kind of
get up and go
and the balls to go do them,
around the world,
in dangerous places,
in foreign unknown places.
The public's reaction
was just amazing, overwhelming.
I mean, it was just...
showed amazing warmth to him
and appreciation
that he'd-he'd chosen
to do this amazing
event in Bristol.
You know,
he could've gone anywhere.
He could've gone to New York,
He could've gone, you know,
to anywhere in the world,
but he chose to do it in
what is his hometown.
Yeah.
And to give Bristol
a massive gift.
Hm.
And it was a massive gift
of time, energy, resources,
but also himself,
'cause as I say,
I think he revealed, you know,
other layers of himself
through the exhibition
inevitably, um,
and added to the whole,
um, persona of Banksy
and the attachment
that Banksy has to Bristol
and Bristol to Banksy
and started lots of
new debates for the city
and really put culture
at the center stage
for those months
that he was there.
I mean, for the time that the
exhibition was on in Bristol,
it was the biggest
talking event in the city.
It was seen as the biggest
cultural event of the decade,
you know, we had visitors
from all over the world.
I mean, you know,
350,000 people came to see it.
They queued every day.
I mean, it was a phenomena.
Best of Warhol moves you.
I'm not sure why.
I don't think you'll
ever know really without,
uh, and on the whole
Best of Banksy makes you smile.
And I don't think
that's enough to kind of
turn you into...
a great artist in the end.
What do you think Warhol
might've had to say about Banksy
if-if he...
He'd be jealous.
He'd be jealous?
Yeah.
Why, because Banksy's have more
success do you think? Or...
He'd be...not more,
but because...
because he had success.
I mean, you know like,
I think...
he thought of something
that Andy didn't.
You know, like, um...
because that's the nature
of Warhol's character.
You know, is, um,
very competitive in a way.
I mean, Warhol
is not a multidimensional,
um, creature.
You don't want to know him.
That matrix,
that cultural matrix
was pretty toxic.
Right.
Um...
Yet, I mean,
I ran away from it.
[chuckles]
Right.
Um, but I think Banksy,
much healthier person.
Warhol was for the '60s,
but Banksy's is for the-
for the-for the-
for the two thou--
the, the two thousands.
Right.
Because what
he's doing is he's...
What Warhol was doing,
he was using materials
and, um, new--
new ideas back in the '60s,
and there was new products
coming onto the market
for artists,
like new paint color--
different colored paint
and different
colored pigments and all that,
so Warhol cashed in on that.
Well, what Banksy's done is,
he's done a...he's-he's done-
he's gone one step farther
than what Warhol's gone.
What he's done is,
he's taken the
society around him,
this 24-hour society,
and he's created an art form
to go onto, to meet that.
The question isn't really,
how accepted is Banksy
going to be
by the art movement.
It's more, um,
how credible will he remain
as he becomes more
an establishment figure?
He's already proved himself
as an establishment figure.
I don't know whether
he sees himself
as part of that world or not,
because he isn't
patronized by a gallery,
um, or someone like Saatchi,
but he does have people
that buy his work.
Celebrities buy his work
and, you know, work, uh--
works of his are auctioned
at very high prices.
So he does participate
whether he wants it or not
in the, um, the art world,
in that he makes money from it.
And he gets his, um,
you know, credibility
by being part of it,
or being anti it.
Whichever way
he's playing it really.
Um, so he's an interesting
addition, I think, to--
to the art-to the-the art world
that we live in.
And, um, yeah, he's--
his celebrity is part of that.
I mean, contemporary visual arts
is also concerned
with celebrity as we know.
Artists are celebrities
and he's part of that.
He may not be a celebrity
that has his picture
on the Hello magazine,
but he's a celebrity because
of the way he milks the media
and plays the media
means he's a celebrity.
He's-he's been able
to play the media, I think.
He's been able to release
as much or as little
information that suits him,
and-and each time with his kind
of stunts it's always been
the right place at
the right time.
So I, you know, to generate
interest and intrigue.
So I think he will continue
to kind of play the media game
ingeniously and skillfully,
but, you know, I'm-I'm sure--
will it mean he will
recoil from the public eye?
I don't know. He's already
pretty removed from it in a way,
isn't he?
So, I don't know what impact
if any something like that story
will have on how he works.
It may not have any impact.
It was a mystery buyer
that bought 50
copies of the film.
Really?
Uh, yeah,
and I am wondering...
[laughing]
...um, whether...[chuckles]...
whether that was, um, Banksy
because, um,
we got a huge order
from that, um,
from that one person up in...
um, and I-I've been
actually really good.
I haven't looked at
the name and the address.
I decided just to let that,
um, let that go,
but, um, the, um,
um, but I'm guessing that
whoever is probably sending--
using those Christmas presents,
I would do it if I was Banksy,
'cause it's amusing and it's
an amusing piece of work.
AK-47 said he wanted me
to get in touch with Banksy
to act as a
hostage negotiator.
So I said,
"What'd you want?"
He said, "Well, I want like
20,000 quid or something."
I think
it's a shame that people
are desperately trying
to unmask him is, is all.
I think it...
I think that in this day
and age where everything,
it seems, is kind of known.
People are, if anything,
are too known.
You know, people are famous
for doing very, very little,
aren't they?
I think that in this day and
age someone being able
to retain an element
of mystery and anonymity
is, is amazingly
exciting and unusual.
The only thing I have
negative about it,
if I was Banksy I
might be thinking,
"Do they like my work
or do they like my mystery?"
The moment
he stopped surprising people
would be the beginning
of the end of the whole saga,
I should think,
but I think that's
what he's been
able to do all the time
ever since, you know,
he's-he's able
to constantly, kind of,
play with people's expectations
and surprise people,
and I-I-I think he'll continue
to do that really.
It's great what he's doing,
'cause he's given someone,
something of people,
for people to kind of focus on
and, like we said earlier,
you know, it makes 'em feel
like they can do anything.
You know, all you gotta do
is think of a little,
uh, you know,
think out of the box,
and, he's kind of opened--
opened things up for individuals
which is great, you know?
- Of course I will watch
with interest to see what he...
like what you said yourself,
what he does next,
because for me,
that's part of the whole
persona and the brand is like,
what does he do next?
Where does he go next?
How does he top that?
How does he--
What narrative
does he want to create next?
And yeah, he can do
what he wants, I think,
um, because, you know,
the fact of the matter is
the show only happened
because he approached us
and resourced it
and our part in that
was we said "yes"
and we made it happen,
and we worked with him
in a way to enable him
to have as much creative freedom
as we could possibly
allow him to.
There's plenty of people
out there who think
Banksy is nothing.
It's a waste of time.
It's, you know,
taking energy and resources
and-and-and, you know,
square centimeter column
space away from other artists
and there are other people
who think exactly the opposite.
They think,
they herald him as a,
as a great hero
of the art world.
I can't believe that he would
slip from history completely
because...
Yeah.
...of the impact he's had,
and obviously, uh,
um, an exhibition like,
that was held
this year is going to be...
just because of its popularity,
I can't believe it would
just disappear as phenomena.
[music]
How many people around him
aren't necessarily
in the position that he may be
now in where there's,
you know, there's-there's
a few pennies in the bank...
I don't really
know why it's tolerated.
This is a high-risk game for us.
I don't think he's that--
he's that prolific at all.
It's humorous meets irony.
[hideous chuckle]
He's very considerate.
[hideous chuckles continue]
He's very considerate, which is
something to be celebrated.
All contemporary art is a
paradox.
I know Banksy.
There's always another twist
to the Banksy story,
isn't there?
And-and he,
whoever he is,
has always got other
tricks up his sleeve.
He's clearly very clever
because, um, I-I think peop--
the fact that he
infiltrated Bristol Museum.
It was a surprise
to everybody.
He must be a good man.
He must be a good bloke.
Coming back to Banksy again,
he's got empathy in his--
in his paintings
if you look right.
I never get requests to--
come and talk to me about
Paella and Stevie Wonder,
because even though they don't
give interviews that often,
they do give interviews.
The one person that I do
get asked about continually
is Banksy.
And I normally get,
um, I would say,
two phone calls a week.
Is the fact this man
has made a lot of money
out of doing something
that's basically illegal,
criminal damage to property,
is that gonna encourage
more people to do it,
or discourage them?
Plainly, it's gonna
encourage them,
'cause now they see
that it can be a valid route
to making-- well,
in Banksy's case
one assumes,
quite a lot of money.
- Hm.
- And that's
got to be attractive.
- Banksy-- top man--
puts stencil graffiti
on the map.
More power.
But maybe
my Banksy is Banksy.
Banksy's cool, man.
- Yeah?
Yeah, I know.
He's...
- Where...?
I want more of Banksy's.
Where's all
the little Banksy's?
Let's go.
Let's go straight to the bank.
Let's surround the bank.
Let's fuck the mortgage bankers
while we're at it.
You just said it.
I mean, it's graffiti's.
They belong to the garage.
We've tried to do our best,
I mean, to keep them,
but, I mean,
they will live like
graffiti lives...
in a city.
But when you think
of a Damian or a Banksy,
then you actually think--
if I say "Banksy," you say,
Uh, mysterious and he's,
he's got sarcasm there...
I think Banksy's shit.
[laughs]
Why don't you like him?
'Cause he's fuckin'
overpaid art fag.
He cuts stencils out.
Banksy personally
imported all that fuckin' dope
into Bristol.
Did he?
- He did.
I know that
for a fuckin' fact.
The whole question
about "Who is Banksy?"
is "Who is Banksy?"
You know, and-and, um,
and, um, I mean, famously
Banksy's people always say
there's a bit of Banksy
in all of us.
You know, if you ask anyone
at one of their exhibitions
who he is and they say,
"Well, maybe it's me,
maybe it's you."
And I quite like that idea.
I've never been that sure
how I got to meet Banksy.
How did I find him?
I think one of the things is
you go and interview this person
and I wasn't like in awe
because I didn't know
much about him,
but obviously
he's standing there
and you're waiting for someone
and you're thinking,
"Who the fuck
am I waiting for?"
'Cause you don't know
what he looks like,
you don't know
what he sounds like,
and, eventually,
you kind of--
this guy--
uh, his manager Steve,
turns up and he says,
um, I got a phone call,
he says
"he'll be with you
in a second."
I turn around and I can tell
that the phone call
is very close to me.
I can hear it, like in stereo,
through my phone and through,
you know,
kind of proximity.
And then I turn around
and there is Banksy.
So, I think.
And he seems, you know,
he was quite scruffy,
uh, not fantastically scruffy,
quite scruffy,
had, uh-- um...
he had a silver earring,
I think, a silver tooth,
slightly unshaven,
you know, kind of bit
of morning shadow,
a bit more than I've got,
and he drank lots of Guinness,
and I drank lots of Guinness.
And, um, I suppose
after about half and hour,
the thought
playing in my head was,
Well, this is all very well,
but how do I know
that you're Banksy, one,
and two, do I really care
whether you're Banksy
and if I'm being fobbed off?
Um, and I suppose
what convinced me that he was
was that he just
talked about himself
with kind of such knowledge
and such ease and, you know,
it-it just didn't seem possible
that he couldn't be.
It'd seem pointless
if he was trying to be--
he was-- well,
he was very convincing anyway.
But, you know,
having said that
you read things
afterwards where apparently,
he's this kind of
posh-public schoolboy,
um, and, uh...
maybe it was him,
but he was selling me
kind of his public persona
of himself which was
that he'd been to a camp
and he'd got into trouble
and that he'd ended up
in some kind of,
I think he said he ended up in
some remote town.
He wouldn't go into detail about
it,
which it made me slightly
suspicious.
Um, but then again,
maybe both versions are true.
Maybe he went to public school.
Maybe he did get into trouble.
He wouldn't be the first person
to.
You know, Banksy had some
little things up on the wall,
he was there, um,
and we just
kind of met and said hello
and he was lovely,
um, sweet, polite,
kind of shy, um,
and I didn't--
I loved his work.
I mean, I think
the image that I fixed on
and, you know,
this'll give you a sense of,
you know, that...
"Money won't change you,
but time will take you out"
as, uh, James Brown would say,
um...
he had little stenciled images,
you know, on Aaron Brother's
frames
or something,
you know, like, um, of his, uh,
Molotov cocktail thrower with
the, uh,
the flowers in the bottle.
- Hm.
- Um, and I loved that.
I think they were
300 bucks or something.
To be honest, I looked at
that picture there and I think,
"Was that Banksy?"
I'm not sure.
I think it probably is.
I was in a pub with him.
I got pissed with him.
We did a good interview,
I wasn't sure if it was him,
and in the end
I decided it probably was him.
I feel I know him.
I feel I recognize
the signature as
if he leaves an aura behind
of having been there.
And the place, in fact,
becomes quite holy, you know,
because you don't just--
it's not just
the piece of work.
You can imagine him having...
because-because
the piece of work
is always located.
The-the-- is-- 50 percent
or 80 percent is location.
So, it's all around
a "Keep Out" sign
or a "No Filming" sign
or a "Don't Dump Rubbish" sign.
You know that he's walked past
that sign every day
and he's noticed it and started
to think about it,
and then his brain is what--
until you get the sense
of standing at a place
that he stands
and viewing something
through his eyes,
um, a piece of
street furniture or, um...
and knowing
that that environment
is important to him is, is, I
think,
just as interesting
as the work.
[siren blaring]
What's that
piece of art over there?
No idea, mate.
[mixed chatter]
Could you have
clearly revealed his identity,
I suppose
you could've done,
but because we were
in such a different time that--
or you were in... I think,
if-if you had it,
it'd be a betrayal of trust.
I do think one of the things
about journalism is that
if someone offers you something
on some terms,
you've got to respect that.
Um, you know, and if you're
going to challenge it,
you've got to do it
in an open way.
I mean, what would that do,
kind of get my mobile out,
go like that,
and then run away?
I just think there's something
dishonest about that.
He doesn't--
he sort of breaks rules a bit,
but he doesn't break--
he doesn't go over the line
of sort of doing it...
I love graffiti.
It's like not...
It's a tagless art.
- Yeah.
It's more, um--
Yeah, tagging is stupid,
but if it's proper art,
then it's...
- And it actually
means something instead of...
Like, people just write
rude words on doors and stuff
and they think it's cool,
but he actually
just does it for a meaning.
I like that.
- And a lot of people
will offer him things.
- Yeah.
- I mean, I-- you know,
I'm sure he has offers
all the time
of things that,
either from institutions
or individuals or
offering him opportunities,
but, in some ways,
you know, how often
he would want to do that.
I-I don't know.
But I can't imagine--
I should imagine
he's very choosy about
what he does.
I mean, rightly so,
because, you know, managing his
exposure
and his associations are clearly
a big part
of the whole image and
personality.
- There's something quite
juvenile about
Banksy's politics.
I mean, we know
that a nation under CCTV
that really gets right to the
core
of what it feels like
to be British,
um, but unfortunately, in some
respects,
if we look deeper,
we know that CCTV is probably
an unavoidable, um, aspect,
and there are times in our lives
when we've
relied on it ourselves.
You know, and I had an apartment
once,
it was always,
always getting people
forcing on their front door
and having some sort of
CCTV camera even though
it doesn't do anything,
it helps deter--
you know, it's useful.
It's not just
a clean question of yes and no.
Banksy tends
to present things as a "No!"
You know,
it's very clea-- it's very--
quite amateur, um,
"studenty" kind of politics,
but we can engage in it.
We know exactly what he means
and exactly what he's feeling,
and, um, and instantly
kind of warm to it
and get the joke.
Um, and that's
what I like about it.
I walk around
and you just smile,
and you just
look at it and you go,
"Oh, fucking brilliant, genius."
You know, it's so simple.
And it's instantly
recognizable as Banksy.
And for all these people
who are in the genre of Banksy,
you, um, and you do,
I walk around the east end
on the Banksy tours.
I go and inspect his work all
the time
and I'm very sad to see
another one disappear
or some wanker graffiti artist
making their
crappy nothing name
by destroy--
defacing a Banksy
as if somehow
that elevates them
to his status is, is just
laughable.
- Yeah.
- Um, that that's what
you need to do.
- He's got a good
kind of political message.
- He seemed to be kind
of very much on the button
of what's going on
in the world, I think,
from the time when,
you know, he went to--
what was it? The
Thunder Bay ride
in-in Disneyland
and in-in-in that kind of
figure of that one
Guantanamo Bay detainee
from that to going to the,
the wall that separates Israel
and Palestine
it's always, you know,
increasingly papist--
being stuff that's
very much on the button
and, and in the sort
of political here and now.
So I should think that
will continue to be,
you know, his next--
whatever it might be,
may be something all about
identity and unmasking,
since that's the kind of--
that's been the latest story
on "On The Story."
- He could be a secret
agent, couldn't he?
He could be passing-- he could
be passing messages
onto his art to people
all over the world.
It's great, isn't it?
- Yeah.
- Absolutely.
I mean, the thing, the thing--
the beauty about Banksy is
he's all things to all men.
Somebody turned around and said
to me said-said,
"Banksy's the nearest thing
to Jesus we've got
in this world today," I went to
him, "Do you reckon?"
He says, "Yeah," and
funny enough,
the person that said
it is an atheist.
- Who knows what makes him tick?
He sounds like a very,
very interesting character.
- Yeah.
- He sounds like
an interesting human being,
actually, just by--
because if we're to believe that
he, which I hope is true,
but again, I may be over
romanticizing the whole thing,
but if we're to believe
that he goes and gives
most of his, uh,
profits to charity,
then, wow, you know?
- Yeah.
- How can you, how
can you fault--
It's almost like it's, it's
another comeback
onto society because you,
you know, society begins to,
to sort of, you know, want
to build somebody up
and then when they're pretty
much at the top of the flagpole
you start chopping away at it.
- I mean, to me it
was the perfect,
as I said, perfect
marriage in the--
between the traditional
institution
and the city and him,
and it wouldn't have
had the same power
if he'd had done it
in Tate Modern.
I mean, it would be
completely different.
Uh, but the fact
that he wanted to work in,
in the museum in the way he did
was incredibly unexpected, I
think, to most people.
So, yes, I think it's showing
that he can surprise--
the scale of it was phenomenal.
I mean-- and, yes,
he invested so much of his
energy and resources
into that show.
It was just incredible.
They were-- his team
were incredibly hardworking
and professional.
And, you know...
So it was not an amateurish
performance.
It was a huge machine.
And, so, yeah, he-- I--
he's made me realize that
he could do whatever he wanted.
So, yeah, maybe he'll come out
and surprise us again or,
maybe he'll go
underground for a bit.
I mean, the Bristol show
was his biggest show he'd done
and certainly hadn't
show work in the UK
for years before so, not--
definitely not on that scale.
- Well, I understand
Banksy is a, uh,
an artist who's known
for his street art,
and, uh, he does
some amazing work.
Uh, whether you see it as, um,
some form of vandalism,
uh, of the environment,
I suppose
is a personal view.
Uh, the quality of his
work is outstanding...
- Um...
but my view is that, uh,
he's usually very careful
where he,
where he performs his art.
- The reason he wants
to protect his identity
is because the commercial value
that it gives to his work.
And, so,
it's very difficult to see
that his
right to a private life--
his right to a family life
would be invaded
by an investigative
journalist saying,
"I've done these researches,
and this is who I think
this man actually is."
And if that happened,
then he'd probably
just have to bear
the consequences.
- I imagine Banksy
choosing not to allow people
to know who he is
was slightly accidental
to begin with, um,
and then very quickly
looked like a--
look-- um,
it became irresistible
or charming and it must be
wonderful to be Banksy
and to be able
to walk amongst us
mortals knowing,
um, that he--
that he has this kind of,
um, massive fame.
- There's no legal right
to know who somebody is.
I mean, Banksy's problem,
for example, in some cases,
if he wants
to enforce the rights
to which he's entitled,
for example, his copyright,
he's gonna
have to reveal who he is.
Now, it may be that as a--
as a logistical matter,
it's possible to do that
under conditions of confidence
that meant
that no one outside of the,
the legal action involved,
will be able to know
who he in fact was,
but it would be an obstacle--
a-a-a very difficult obstacle
for him to overcome,
because generally speaking
the rule is that
if you come to the law,
you aught to be
doing so in public.
That-that-that law should be--
that justice should be seen
to be done in public
and therefore
the general principle is that
you-you don't protect
these kinds of-of things.
But, a-- as a,
as a general rule,
um, he doesn't
have to tell us who he is
and why--
and why should he?
We're all private citizens
within, uh, the state.
This is information
that we retain for ourselves.
Why should it be revealed?
Sometimes we're gonna
need to rely upon it
for our own reasons,
but it's very difficult to see
why the law would require--
the civil law at least,
would require you
to identify who you are.
Of course,
as a practical matter,
often we do need to
identify who we are...
...getting a
driving license,
getting a passport,
of course,
there's a difference between
saying, "This is who I am,"
and saying, "And I am
the person known as Banksy."
- Mm-hm.
- That's--
You know, he can't have
two separate personas
from that point of view
and it not make
a particular difference.
I think the people around him,
though, are very cynical.
Why?
- Um, you know, I'm not,
you know,
I do find that, um...
um...
I think they're
probably more protective
of him and his brand and the way
he moves forth than he is.
And I-I-I-I do have quite a lot
of the inside track--
I lived in L.A. for awhile
and I kind of know
that there was a big
bust-up between Banksy
and the people who worked with
him over the amount of money
they took from the L.A.,
um, L.A.-- L.A. show
that made him
so popular in America.
Copyrighters are purely
property rights.
It's all about the money.
That's the only issue
that arises.
There are connected rights
that sort of lay above it,
or perhaps more appropriately,
one might say,
underlie it-- moral rights,
so the right to be identified
as the author.
I think it says
something about Banksy
that he wanted to give that
interview.
It was-- he was doing
his first ever, um,
exhibition at a gallery,
and so he obviously want--
decided he wanted a better
publicity at that stage,
but I don't think he's ever
given an interview since.
Lot 270, the Banksy.
"You Told That Joke Twice."
And I'll start this at, uh,
85-- 90-- 95,000.
- And therein lies
one of my biggest problems
in the urban art movement
that you've got
a lot of these artists,
a lot of whom
are very talented,
and a lot of
whom I have to say
are not as talented
as people say they are
because they're trying
to make them into something
that they're not,
but in both cases
they are being cash cow'd,
they're being milked,
and that's not fair.
It's not fair for the artist.
It's not fair
for the artwork.
It's definitely
not fair for the buyer.
And any person who seems
to be benefiting out of it
is predominantly
the, uh, you know,
the-the-the dealer or the agent.
Yes, at 95,000 pounds.
It's at 95,000 pounds.
Automatically people
started saying,
"That's worth a lot of money."
And then it's like, all right.
And then you think,
uh, like that guy
who come on the telly
that same sort of week
and he covered
his one up in plastic.
And it kind of didn't look
quite right, did it Chris?
It was like,
"What would you do that for?"
You know, you cover it
in plastic protecting it,
and then you're selling it.
It kinda takes away what it is
actually there for, doesn't it?
I mean, it's there--
I mean, I've found people
who spray on top of it.
They're only doing what the
first person did,
and if they--that's kind of a
freedom, isn't it in a way?
Yeah.
- To do that.
So it's not--
it's not our business
if someone sprays
over the top of it, you know?
95,000 pounds.
Who said more than 95?
Sorry.
- 100,000.
Thank you very much.
Even the same with houses,
you know, people allegedly
cutting sides
of their houses out.
There's a reason why he would've
selected that environment,
and it just seems sad
that someone would
choose to remove it.
120, I have 130.
The interesting thing about art
in a way when you think about it
is that it's an area--
a uniquely capitalist area,
the value of the piece
is entirely determined
by how many people want it
versus how many of
them are available,
and in a sense
you could say,
"The more people want it,
the more popular it is,
the more valuable it is"--
relative term.
Of course, that argument
must breakdown at some point
because otherwise,
the best pieces of art
or the most valuable
pieces of art
would be the most
popular pieces of art,
and it doesn't
always follow that way.
Some pieces of art
are more valuable
even though they have
a very niche appeal,
but, there's--
you know, art is in a way
a uniquely capitalist
or a particularly capitalist
field of endeavor.
The value of what you do
is precisely determined
by the scarcity and demand
of, um, your products versus
the interest in those products.
140?
[bidding continues]
- When you buy art,
I mean, it's--
I mean, I suppose
that's pretty much the
the fundamental problem
that I've got is that,
you know, we're,
you know, we're talking about
all art as investments,
you know?
And don't get me wrong,
I'm not, you know,
I'm not airy-fairy, you know,
happy-clappy kind of guy
that I'm thinking, you know,
well, let's all buy art,
you know, for the sake of it
because it's, you know,
it's beautiful
and it's salvation
to our spiritual,
you know, spirituality.
And, not-not-not at all.
We live in a world,
myself included,
where you want value.
You want to know that what
you've bought and acquired
is gonna have some kind
of value in addition--
I'm talking economic value now--
hardcore money
I mean, not in addition
to all the elements
which is the reasons
why I hope people are buying,
but I also appreciate
and understand
because I did it myself
that there also has to be
an element of value
attached to it that you--
you're not gonna go
and buy something for 15,000
and then find that
at the end of the year
pretty much
everyone around you
knew it was gonna
end up being a hundred quid
because it was--
it was just valueless,
but with the kind
of artists that we represent
and work with and sell
I mean, I--
that's quite unlikely.
But it is a risk,
of course it's a risk.
Everything's a risk.
The world is a risk.
I mean, when you buy something
and there's no guarantee.
You buy property in the
middle of Bulgaria today,
who's to say
it's not gonna be worth
half the value in five years?
You know,
we can't control anything,
you know, what happens,
feast, famine, plague, war.
I mean, you know?
At 140,000 pounds
for the Banksy.
[unintelligible]
Selling for 140,000 pounds.
[unintelligible]
- Thanks so much.
- Of course.
We're in Clerkenwell Road.
What's behind us?
It was a Banksy.
I believe it's just been
taken off the wall.
How much was it sold for?
I-I don't know.
I mean, it's...
it's between my landlord
and whoever bought it.
You haven't heard any amounts
of money being mentioned?
No, I haven't. No.
When did they
start removing it?
About three weeks ago--
three or four weeks ago.
Where is it going to?
I believe
it's a private collector.
So he's gonna...
He's bought it off my landlord.
He's found some people
to take it off the wall,
and he's
taking it off the wall.
What you think about this?
I'm quite glad
it's going, actually.
It saves my fence,
'cause too many people
go-go-go-go, uh,
go over the fence trying to...
trying to have a look at it.
Mr. Banksy might pop back
and do another piece here.
Yeah, if-if-if-if he's there--
if he watches this,
could he just
put it right on my grill
so I can take them off
nice and easy?
[both chuckling]
If he did your grills,
that should be what,
at least 50- 60K,
shouldn't it?
Well, I think so, yeah.
And then that-- it's good
for your business, isn't it?
Well, yeah,
but we can take 'em down
pay for some
miniaturized ones
which would save me
a lot of backache.
I was getting a bit upset
at people
going over the fence.
My fence was all smashed
out because people
were climbing over
to take pictures of it.
In front of the steel
was all-- was all--
was all broken.
Art students
going over the top.
Unofficially off the backdrive,
I think it was by the ground.
It's in Liverpool, apparently...
What is it they were trying
to take off the wall?
I don't know.
I don't know.
He asked-- he came in,
this customer of mine
is paparazzi, actually,
and he came in and he said
he's got a friend
up in Liverpool
where Banksy
did some work up there
and-and-and he's gonna try
and take it off the wall,
but it's part brick
and part render,
so he's gonna have
more of a trouble
than these guys here.
He's gonna paint
the whole area...
Oh right.
...and make good
and provide my landlord
with-with a--
with a life-size--
I think-- I-I-I think it was,
from what he tells me,
it's about a grand.
That's not a lot.
It's not, but he--
he bought it...
Really?
- Yeah.
He just spent a long time in
trying to find the right people
to take it off the wall.
Well, it's just not
an easy job, is it?
Two main galleries
of dealing in his artwork
is obviously, uh, Laz Inc.--
Lazarides who...was...is...
I still can't work it out,
his primary dealer,
and, um...
seems to be doing
very, very well,
and, you know,
seems to be very well
put together, clever guy
and getting on with,
you know,
with supporting
Urban arts and artists,
and he seems to
be very pivotal.
He's got a good eye,
I'll say that for him.
He's got a very good eye
for what he does.
Um, and ourselves,
and of course,
there're a lot of other,
you know,
what I call "Bedroom Dealers,"
you know, the on-line gallerist
and the guys
who are sort of private,
you know, sitting on their
couches with a mobile phone
and a Wi-Fi connection to
the mobile and dealing in art,
but, I mean, then there's
one or two very nice guys
out there who do that,
but the majority of them
I question mark because
they're kind of hawking
his artwork as a--
as a commodity,
as an investment.
I mean, I had lunch
with one two weeks ago
who will remain nameless,
but it was the most
surreal lunch, I think,
I've-I've had in a long time.
It was--
Lunch lasted
an hour-and-a-half.
The guy did most of the talking.
I sat back and listened,
which is quite unlike me
as you can, you know,
see I'm nice and verbose and...
and I got back and I-I-I--
and I said to, you know,
to-to-to my colleagues here--
to my staff I just said,
"We could've been
talking about barrels of oil.
"There was no discussion
about the artist, Banksy.
"There was no discussion
about the artworks.
"There was no discussion
about people buying.
It was a
commodity-traded discussion."
You know, I buy at sixty
and I sell it at a hundred.
There was that kind
of conversation.
It was very sad.
I mean, I don't want to be...
I mean, I'm in it,
but I don't want to be,
you know,
it's not even that
we don't want to be
blatant about it,
it's-it's just not our M.O.
- Recently we heard
of someone who got their barer--
the kind of-- whatever--
their trading barer
graffitied over
and-and someone
recognized it was a Banksy
and gave the guy 15 grand
in cash or something for it,
and everyone thinks
it was terribly clever.
They cut out the piece
of work and they, um--
and-and apparently
it's worth a lot,
and I'm sure that it's still
a very good investment,
but for me the idea
of cutting out a piece of work
from the environment
that it had been painted in
defeats-- it shows a fundamental
lack of understanding
about what Banksy's about,
um, at the very least
have the good sense
to leave the piece intact.
- He paid someone
to do a caravan
and then after
it's worth 3 million.
Very cool.
96,000 pounds...
[laughter]
97,000, 98,000.
98,000 have you.
...99,000?
[laughter]
98,000 in the room...
Any further interest at
98,000? Are you sure?
I'm selling.
At 98,000 pounds.
[gavel pounds]
Thank you very much, sir.
Congratulations...
[applause]
That's 45,000 for it.
Okay, and like you said it,
that's what it is and I don't--
I'm not gonna...
I've narrowed it down to that.
That's 45,000.
This one is, you know,
that's 16 and,
you know...
But these are opinions.
- Yeah, yeah.
These are my opinions...
- Yes.
...that I think, you know,
having done a little bit
of homework, I hope,
and having had open discussions
with, you know, with my team
that you kind of build
a kind of ballpark figure
of where you think
the fair market value is.
Yeah.
But it's not about,
you know,
saying to people that
"Well, I've bought these,
I bought them at 700 pounds,
and I'm--and-and I
reckon I'll let them go
when they're
a hundred thousand."
I mean, it's...
you know, that's,
that's just commodity speak.
We're talking about,
"What do we think
is the fair price of selling,
you know, a Banksy, a deface,
a Giorgio, whatever,
to our clients?"
What's the right price?
Where is it a win, win, win?
It's not about, you know,
it's not about
killing off the client
and making as much
money as you can.
Which, unfortunately, a lot of--
especially in the consumerist
world that we're living in,
in this very bullish,
very capitalist world
that we live in
is very much about that,
is what can you get away with?
That's most people's
mantra now is, you know,
is what can we get away with.
It's not about,
"What can we get away with?"
"Hey let's look out for
the client, because
if we look after the
client will then
come back to us again
and again and again,
because
they'll feel comfortable."
And whilst we could've made
a killing for half a million
with a client
on the first time,
and then maybe if you're lucky
do another one the second time,
it's not gonna, you know--
but you'll
never see the client again.
Whereas our philosophy is that,
"Hey, wouldn't it be great
"if we can work with that
client for 20- 30 years
because we'll make
a hell of a lot of money
than, you know,
than a half a million a pop?"
In the long-term.
You know, you're actually
talking about a feeling
rather than a particular
thing, aren't you?
No, I'm an anarchist.
So when you go and buy--
yeah, but when you
go and buy a Banksy,
you're actually buying
a particular feeling.
You're buying sarcasm and,
you know, and somebody's
rebelling against
and being clever,
so, you're not actually buying
a piece anymore, are you?
You're actually buying--
it doesn't matter which one
you buy, they all got the--
you're saying
they all got the--
a lot of people kind of say
the same thing about every one.
Hm.
I don't think
he's being sarc--
he's being a bit rebellious,
and he's infiltrating
into buildings.
So you're not actually
buying a piece,
you're buying someone
infiltrating into buildings.
You're buying an idea.
So it doesn't really matter
whether it's a rat or a cat,
you-- you're buying,
you're buying sarcasm.
That's right, yeah.
And besides the artist,
you're buying
something else, right?
You're actually buying a
bit of their personality
really, aren't you?
Whereas before, wasn't it
more about buying a piece?
- The reason I made the film
was really, as I said earlier,
when someone's famous,
what is real anyway?
What the fuck is real,
um, about their lives?
Almost nothing is real.
Um, and, um...
you could see why
alcoholism and drug use
and everything is so rife.
It's just nothing...
there's nothing real in that--
not just in fame but in money,
there is nothing nicer about...
there's nothing nice
about sitting in a boat.
- I think what he does
is quite creative.
Is graffiti art or a crime?
Whether is what
he's doing right?
I mean, kids spray painting
on walls is it...?
Depends whether
they're doing wrong or right.
Already we can...
you can see
that he's changed the way
huge numbers
of people think about
A. Graffiti and B. Art.
I think he's made
a great deal of people
rethink their views on graffiti,
people that before just thought
it's kind of an eyesore,
it's Urban blight.
You know, it's associated
with bits of cities where
it's dangerous or you can't walk
around at night or whatever.
I think Banksy and others,
but perhaps chiefly him,
have changed that view and
have got so many more people
interested and
appreciative of graffiti,
you know, researching for that
book and writing about graffiti
for Venue Magazine
and Bristol, I've realized that
all different groups of society
that before probably,
why they're unaware of it
or took a dim view of it
now say, "Yeah, I like it.
"I walk around my local
bit of Bristol and look out
for what's come up next."
You know,
this is school children,
women in their 60s, whoever.
I think that's a
relatively recent thing
and it's part
of the Banksy effect
that lots
of people suddenly think,
"Uh, yeah, this art
goes up on our streets
"and it's really interesting
and it's fascinating seeing
"what's going up next.
And, this bit makes me laugh.
This bit makes me think about,
you know, the war in Iraq,"
or whatever it might be.
So I think
he's massively changed
the way we look at graffiti,
and I think he's probably--
will be seen to have changed
the way we look at art as well.
Maybe we'll have a less kind
of hierarchical view of art
that you don't
have to have kind of been to
the Royal College of Art
and, you know,
have an intimate
knowledge of art
from Giotto to Mono
to actually produce
something worthwhile
and amazingly artistically
strong and valuable.
So I think he's turned
a great many more people
onto both graffiti and art
than before.
Do you know, does the post
office control that wall?
I swear I, I swear I
really don't know, mate.
I mean, I was talking
to my managers today
and they
were saying that, um,
basically,
it's a bit of a hazard
with fans that are coming
in and out all day,
and, of course, it's become
a bit of a tourist attraction.
We went to town
around 10 o'clock
and I come back
in the afternoon.
Went upstairs, I come home
When I see somebody come back at
4'oclock the scaffold was gone
And that was then,
I thought to myself,
"Wow, that's what I like"
Sunday morning, I was going
back to church,
and then
I saw somebody put scaffolding
around the corner
and I wonder what it is?
And they come back later
about 12:00,
and I-I see--
I-I-I see somebody inside,
'cause it was all-- it was all--
it was all covered in,
it was all like,
you know, like blacked out,
and, uh, you couldn't see
what was going on behind it.
Then 4:00 come back
and we seen what it was.
I looked at it this way.
Look, they must've...
They, they--
I wanted...
There as-- there'd be people
up there with the lights red
as if it'd been
attached to the wall.
Did the post office check
their CCTV, to see whether--
to know
whether they actually
captured him
and his boys doing it?
What I heard that happened,
it happened over the weekend,
and Saturday afternoon--
Saturday night in here is dead.
All we've got is security,
probably two people.
Yeah.
And what happened,
they come in the front...
Mm.
...of scaffolding line
with some sort of,
um, paperwork saying
that they wanted
to clean the walls.
[chuckles]
Right?
And so this
scaffolding went up
and it was covered in tarp.
We're alternative
funeral directors,
Heaven on Earth in Bristol,
and it must be
five or six years ago
we did actually deliver--
uh, it wasn't at the same time,
but during the same year
we delivered two coffins
for Banksy to spray
for obviously
friends of his who had died.
Uh, one was for
a pub landlady
who had vodka bottles
and various other things
sprayed on to her coffin,
and the other
must've been a close friend.
All I can remember
was on the actual coffin
he'd sprayed
"No More Lies, Truth Time,"
and this is what people saw
as the coffin was lowered
into the crematorium.
So we didn't...
we didn't know
how mourners would take it,
but it went down very well
because, as I said,
that was what
he used to say all the time,
and Banksy had sprayed
that on the coffin.
It was older '80s.
It wasn't stencils.
He'd done like freehand, yes.
Um, they didn't
look like stencils to me,
but, um, yeah,
more the '80s style.
Are there no photos
of these copies?
There are no photos,
unfortunately, no.
I think at the,
um, landlady's funeral,
Paul McGann actually did the,
the speech at the funeral.
So...
Banksy obviously
moves in the right circles.
So there were
two coffins he did?
There were two coffins, yes,
that, um, he did.
They were just plain.
We supply plain coffins
without any varnish
or anything on them--
called in the white.
Uh, and of course,
they're easy to spray and, uh,
yeah, he did
a great job on them.
When did it strike you
that you knew that this...
did you know--
when you delivered the coffins,
did you know they were going
to him and that was kind of..
We knew that Banksy
was going to do them.
He had, you know,
he obviously had a little bit
of a name in Bristol,
um, but certainly not
the international acclaim
that he has now, and, you know,
he seems to be on
everyone's lips
and people paying
hundreds and thousands
for his works, but, um,
we knew of him certainly,
and, uh, we knew that
we had to deliver the coffins
and pick them up
without meeting him.
So we knew
it was a bit hush hush,
and, uh, it all added to it,
I suppose.
Yes, it was, uh...
So when did
the penny drop for you?
When did you sort of think,
"Okay, that was Banksy"
and that, like we supplied
it to him and did, you know,
your sort of interest
heighten a little bit?
Well, obviously when
he got more popular--
when he got more famous
when he was appearing on
the national news and we think,
"Oh wow, we actually,
uh, you know,
"we actually supplied something
that he painted on and, uh,
I wish we'd have kept them now,"
but, no, it was, uh--
they were great funerals
and the coffins were appreciated
by all friends and family.
So it was, um, yeah,
it was a great thing he did.
It may not be,
it may not be so obvious
when you first
look at it, right,
but if you, if you look,
if you look at the colors
and every area where he,
where he, where he does his
does his graffiti,
if you look at the area,
when you look at
what the social mix is
and you look at
what the-the density,
if it's high density
or high rise flats
or something like that,
he seems to be able to source
what the right color scheme is
for the particular piece
he's going to do,
what the subject matter is,
right, where he's gonna put it.
You know what I mean?
And then, you know,
and he's obviously
gone and checking out the social
mix of the area as well.
Hm.
So that piece looks...
on the wall there,
his idea for Batten Green.
Hm.
Maybe if-if he went
somewhere else,
it might not work.
It wouldn't work
at Mulholland Park.
One of the things
that gives me great pleasure
is being involved
with the Banksy theme.
But I don't, um,
I don't know whether I work,
um, I effect--
I-I'm not as
cynical about Banksy
as some people seem to be.
Um, I-I haven't invested
in the emotional...
a-a-any--
he's not my guru--
my political guru
because as I said,
his art is actually
quite childish
and his messages
are quite childish,
and there's nothing
particularly sophisticated
about a Banksy message.
It's just a very clear piece
of thinking on that, say, CCTV
or, um, or the Arms Race.
Or...um,
It's just nice beautiful
pieces of thought,
but actually, um...
it's not clever
and so, um, it's not--
it's clever in the way
it's delivered and in a,
you know,
they're more like jokes,
um, environmental jokes,
um, and they just
give me great hope,
you know, I go around
and I just feel someone has
a really nice
independent thought
and a really beautiful
piece of execution.
So I'm very happy
to be involved in that.
So when people
look at a painting
or look at
something like that,
it detracts 'em
from all the goings around.
They actually stand still.
You can't go past
that out there
no matter how much
of a hurry you're in, right,
even if you're coming home
and you've had a shitty day,
you come past there
and you get-- secret smile.
You just smile to yourself.
You know?
Yeah, no it's...
It's an incredi-
it's an incredible thing
and I find
that children seem to be
children and young people,
even teenagers,
teenagers like it
and older people
like it as well.
And it seems,
it seems to cross the age.
Are we to blame?
Are the auction houses
and galleries like Andipa
to blame
for this phrase "Urban,"
because we're trying to do
the one thing
that I don't like doing,
but I almost feel
compelled to do which is
try and give it some boundaries,
try and put it in a box.
It was done in this purpose
to show Switzerland
that the kind of open country
and open to exchanges
between different communities
and artists and...
Getting up at all hours
and going out there and...
And what happens
when the police turn up?
Yeah, definitely, yeah.
Yeah, I mean,
you speak to the artists
and they get false documents
and they show people documents
and give 'em an extra half
an hour and then, you know,
I suppose it is quite exciting
for them, isn't it, you know?
And might the...
what did it take to put the,
you know...
it's quite big, the flower?
Yeah,
there's scaffolding, yeah,
there's scaffolding
up there, you know,
and it was done
really quickly.
[mixed chatter]
It was through an approach
that his people
made to us at the museum.
So, um,
the first we knew about it
was that he rang--
well, not him personally,
but his people
rang up the museum
and I think
they tried to speak to me,
but I wasn't available,
but they ended up
getting hold of
the exhibition's manager
at the time
and, uh, said that they were
interested in working with us,
and of course we all thought
it was a bit of a joke at first.
We thought, "Oh, yeah,
who's this ringing us up saying
it's Banksy wants to have
an exhibition with you?"
'Cause it was just like--
we'd always-- we'd sort of said,
"Oh, wouldn't it be great
if we could work with Banksy?"
But never thinking that he would
work with somewhere like us.
So, um, so anyway,
when the call happened,
the first I knew about it
was that Phil came into
my office and said, uh,
"Banksy's people
want to take me to New York."
[chuckles]
And of course, in local
government museums,
this doesn't happen very often.
[chuckles]
So anyway,
I said to him, um,
"Well, they must be serious
then if they want to fly you
to New York to see his show,"
'cause he's got this...
pet store on
in New York at the time
and, um, it was going down.
It was only there for days.
So, uh, they wanted
to get him out there to see it,
'cause the proposal was to bring
the pet store to Bristol.
There's always this kind of
sense of the kind of intruder
I think, isn't there,
like going into all these
prestigious museums
and art galleries in New York
and putting up his artwork.
I thought
that was very kind of--
that was a very strong symbol
of the kind of thing he does.
It's kind of...
it's sort of toppling the whole
idea of authority, you know?
I've got every right,
every much right,
to put my artwork up in this
museum as anyone else.
So, it's a very kind of
democratic notion, I think.
Yeah, I just sent out a
general email saying,
um, how do we feel
about graffiti on the--
'cause it's quite
a nice big wall--
it's quite a nice canvas, if you
like, for graffiti artists.
And I would...
It's just a general inquiry,
would we mind having graffiti
on the side of the building.
And, um, this place
is run on committee.
So, uh, the committee said,
"Well, that's fine."
'Cause they
kind of like support him.
They realize he's a
young influxive young artist
in the area
and due to that--
I said, "Yeah, well you know.
If it's not offending anyone."
Uh, they did not mind at all.
So, um...
and then it just popped up.
Obviously, you wouldn't like it
on the side of the building
if it had been
a horrible thing.
And like Chris was saying,
you know, people are enjoying it
in the area.
So if it was horrible,
we would've been
scrubbing it off the wall
probably, wouldn't we?
Or people would've complained
and then made us
scrub it off the wall, you know?
So someone else
has gone over it,
and there's nothing there
that anyone's
wanting scrubbed off,
so that's welcome
to be there, isn't it, you know?
The first one
happens to be a Banksy.
'Cause our email
was local artists,
"Are we okay to do some
graffiti on your wall?"
And we said,
"Yeah, as long as it's--
as long as
the neighbors enjoy it."
Can you just
describe what happened
with the Banksy artwork
that is on the side
of your canvas please?
What's happened recently,
you mean?
Um, it's been defaced.
It's been, um,
someone's come with a roller
and some emulsion paint
and, uh, defaced the flag...
or the Tesco carrier bag.
Why do you feel
that's happened?
Why?
I have no idea at all.
To me, I don't know.
It seems like
pure vandalism to me.
How, um...
how did the rat appear
on the outside of the building?
Uh, the rat, I'm pretty sure is
a prank, actually, to be honest.
I'm not convinced
it's by him at all.
Yes, we had this party,
I think, if I remember
where the project
was a project called
"Regeneration,"
and the idea was really
to pass the new century over
to some young artists
and the topic
was mostly graffitis.
And this, uh,
this show was followed,
I mean, this lounge,
it was a rave party actually,
uh, where a lot
of young people were invited,
and, uh, this rave party
was followed by
a kind of conference
on the legality of graffitis.
And the project
went over and the--
we-we-we kept the graffitis
in the garage
without really thinking
of what was going to
happen or whatever.
The guardian had
mentioned as well
that we were due
to whitewash the graffiti
and that was
definitely a plan,
but I think
the ambassador at the time
thought it was rather
nice to keep.
So they burned whitewash.
- We seem to be on the, uh,
the Banksy tourist trail here,
'cause we have, uh,
one of Banksy's works
two doors down from us,
and, um, I think Bristol
has become a bit of a mecca
for Banksy fans.
- What's the piece
that's just down from you then?
- Um, that is the rifleman
aiming somewhere
with, um, a boy
standing behind him
just about to pop a,
paper bag, which, uh,
a bit of controversy
when it first came
since it's right opposite
the children's hospital,
but, um...
Banksy being Banksy,
I think people
loved it more than loathed it.
Do you like it?
I like it, yes.
I like him, um,
I like his art, yeah.
What do you think
he adds to the city?
Uh...
A bit of fun.
A bit of, you know, I mean,
we have problem with--
problems with ordinary,
uh, people who spray things,
but this is, um,
we call it "art,"
but it's, it's got a message,
it's fun, it makes you think.
So, I think it's, uh,
a good addition to the city.
What would you say to the media
who want to reveal it?
Party poopers and
they're boring.
I suppose
that graffiti art is-is-
is something that kind
of empowers a lot of people
because they don't
wait for galleries to, you know,
to allow them exhibit.
You just go out and-and-and-
and do your thing and so
I guess when
one person does it,
um, encourages
other people to do it.
- He does direct action
as well, doesn't he?
'Cause he walks in
to the Tate and stuff
and just puts his work up.
- Yeah.
Yeah, people like that,
don't they?
'Cause it makes them feel like
they could, they could be doing
something like that too,
everyone can do that.
And he's not even using
his name sometimes, is he?
He's just doing it
and it just happens to be him.
And that means that you could--
anyone could do it.
You could do it.
Chris could do it.
I think maybe
that's why people like it.
It gives them a bit
of glimmer of something
they could be doing, too.
Don't need to be someone who's
got a name or got contacts.
You can just be
clever and do it.
A strength
has always been the idea...
I just remember
speaking to one
Bristol artist who said,
you know,
"I thought of similar things--
thought of doing similar things
"to the kind of things
that Banksy's done,
but I haven't had those ideas.
Or if I have,
I haven't done them."
And that's the thing
with Banksy.
I think it's-
it's incredibly crisp, clear,
witty, subversive ideas,
and then
it's just the kind of
get up and go
and the balls to go do them,
around the world,
in dangerous places,
in foreign unknown places.
The public's reaction
was just amazing, overwhelming.
I mean, it was just...
showed amazing warmth to him
and appreciation
that he'd-he'd chosen
to do this amazing
event in Bristol.
You know,
he could've gone anywhere.
He could've gone to New York,
He could've gone, you know,
to anywhere in the world,
but he chose to do it in
what is his hometown.
Yeah.
And to give Bristol
a massive gift.
Hm.
And it was a massive gift
of time, energy, resources,
but also himself,
'cause as I say,
I think he revealed, you know,
other layers of himself
through the exhibition
inevitably, um,
and added to the whole,
um, persona of Banksy
and the attachment
that Banksy has to Bristol
and Bristol to Banksy
and started lots of
new debates for the city
and really put culture
at the center stage
for those months
that he was there.
I mean, for the time that the
exhibition was on in Bristol,
it was the biggest
talking event in the city.
It was seen as the biggest
cultural event of the decade,
you know, we had visitors
from all over the world.
I mean, you know,
350,000 people came to see it.
They queued every day.
I mean, it was a phenomena.
Best of Warhol moves you.
I'm not sure why.
I don't think you'll
ever know really without,
uh, and on the whole
Best of Banksy makes you smile.
And I don't think
that's enough to kind of
turn you into...
a great artist in the end.
What do you think Warhol
might've had to say about Banksy
if-if he...
He'd be jealous.
He'd be jealous?
Yeah.
Why, because Banksy's have more
success do you think? Or...
He'd be...not more,
but because...
because he had success.
I mean, you know like,
I think...
he thought of something
that Andy didn't.
You know, like, um...
because that's the nature
of Warhol's character.
You know, is, um,
very competitive in a way.
I mean, Warhol
is not a multidimensional,
um, creature.
You don't want to know him.
That matrix,
that cultural matrix
was pretty toxic.
Right.
Um...
Yet, I mean,
I ran away from it.
[chuckles]
Right.
Um, but I think Banksy,
much healthier person.
Warhol was for the '60s,
but Banksy's is for the-
for the-for the-
for the two thou--
the, the two thousands.
Right.
Because what
he's doing is he's...
What Warhol was doing,
he was using materials
and, um, new--
new ideas back in the '60s,
and there was new products
coming onto the market
for artists,
like new paint color--
different colored paint
and different
colored pigments and all that,
so Warhol cashed in on that.
Well, what Banksy's done is,
he's done a...he's-he's done-
he's gone one step farther
than what Warhol's gone.
What he's done is,
he's taken the
society around him,
this 24-hour society,
and he's created an art form
to go onto, to meet that.
The question isn't really,
how accepted is Banksy
going to be
by the art movement.
It's more, um,
how credible will he remain
as he becomes more
an establishment figure?
He's already proved himself
as an establishment figure.
I don't know whether
he sees himself
as part of that world or not,
because he isn't
patronized by a gallery,
um, or someone like Saatchi,
but he does have people
that buy his work.
Celebrities buy his work
and, you know, work, uh--
works of his are auctioned
at very high prices.
So he does participate
whether he wants it or not
in the, um, the art world,
in that he makes money from it.
And he gets his, um,
you know, credibility
by being part of it,
or being anti it.
Whichever way
he's playing it really.
Um, so he's an interesting
addition, I think, to--
to the art-to the-the art world
that we live in.
And, um, yeah, he's--
his celebrity is part of that.
I mean, contemporary visual arts
is also concerned
with celebrity as we know.
Artists are celebrities
and he's part of that.
He may not be a celebrity
that has his picture
on the Hello magazine,
but he's a celebrity because
of the way he milks the media
and plays the media
means he's a celebrity.
He's-he's been able
to play the media, I think.
He's been able to release
as much or as little
information that suits him,
and-and each time with his kind
of stunts it's always been
the right place at
the right time.
So I, you know, to generate
interest and intrigue.
So I think he will continue
to kind of play the media game
ingeniously and skillfully,
but, you know, I'm-I'm sure--
will it mean he will
recoil from the public eye?
I don't know. He's already
pretty removed from it in a way,
isn't he?
So, I don't know what impact
if any something like that story
will have on how he works.
It may not have any impact.
It was a mystery buyer
that bought 50
copies of the film.
Really?
Uh, yeah,
and I am wondering...
[laughing]
...um, whether...[chuckles]...
whether that was, um, Banksy
because, um,
we got a huge order
from that, um,
from that one person up in...
um, and I-I've been
actually really good.
I haven't looked at
the name and the address.
I decided just to let that,
um, let that go,
but, um, the, um,
um, but I'm guessing that
whoever is probably sending--
using those Christmas presents,
I would do it if I was Banksy,
'cause it's amusing and it's
an amusing piece of work.
AK-47 said he wanted me
to get in touch with Banksy
to act as a
hostage negotiator.
So I said,
"What'd you want?"
He said, "Well, I want like
20,000 quid or something."
I think
it's a shame that people
are desperately trying
to unmask him is, is all.
I think it...
I think that in this day
and age where everything,
it seems, is kind of known.
People are, if anything,
are too known.
You know, people are famous
for doing very, very little,
aren't they?
I think that in this day and
age someone being able
to retain an element
of mystery and anonymity
is, is amazingly
exciting and unusual.
The only thing I have
negative about it,
if I was Banksy I
might be thinking,
"Do they like my work
or do they like my mystery?"
The moment
he stopped surprising people
would be the beginning
of the end of the whole saga,
I should think,
but I think that's
what he's been
able to do all the time
ever since, you know,
he's-he's able
to constantly, kind of,
play with people's expectations
and surprise people,
and I-I-I think he'll continue
to do that really.
It's great what he's doing,
'cause he's given someone,
something of people,
for people to kind of focus on
and, like we said earlier,
you know, it makes 'em feel
like they can do anything.
You know, all you gotta do
is think of a little,
uh, you know,
think out of the box,
and, he's kind of opened--
opened things up for individuals
which is great, you know?
- Of course I will watch
with interest to see what he...
like what you said yourself,
what he does next,
because for me,
that's part of the whole
persona and the brand is like,
what does he do next?
Where does he go next?
How does he top that?
How does he--
What narrative
does he want to create next?
And yeah, he can do
what he wants, I think,
um, because, you know,
the fact of the matter is
the show only happened
because he approached us
and resourced it
and our part in that
was we said "yes"
and we made it happen,
and we worked with him
in a way to enable him
to have as much creative freedom
as we could possibly
allow him to.
There's plenty of people
out there who think
Banksy is nothing.
It's a waste of time.
It's, you know,
taking energy and resources
and-and-and, you know,
square centimeter column
space away from other artists
and there are other people
who think exactly the opposite.
They think,
they herald him as a,
as a great hero
of the art world.
I can't believe that he would
slip from history completely
because...
Yeah.
...of the impact he's had,
and obviously, uh,
um, an exhibition like,
that was held
this year is going to be...
just because of its popularity,
I can't believe it would
just disappear as phenomena.
[music]