Banksy

Banksy’s career has often been framed as a detective story, with anonymity generating a mythology that can overshadow the work itself. Cast variously as national treasure, urban folk hero, or cynical sell-out, his public image remains unstable and contested. This illustrated volume by Paul Gough deliberately avoids the question of identity, focusing instead on Banksy’s practice as that of an artist, cultural commentator, and strategist of disruption.

Structured thematically, the book examines Banksy’s work across multiple roles and media—stenciller, painter, curator, and filmmaker. Rather than treating individual works as isolated provocations, it situates them within broader social and political contexts. Close attention is paid to the mechanics of his craft: how stencilling sharpens critique, how captions redirect meaning, and how appropriated paintings unsettle the conventions of art history.

The study traces key moments that have shaped Banksy’s reputation, from Barely Legal in Los Angeles and the museum “donations” of 2004–05, to the Bristol Museum takeover, Dismaland, and the Sotheby’s shredding of Girl with Balloon. Alongside these spectacles, the book slows down to analyse visual detail and typography, presenting Banksy not as a mythic figure but as a cultural actor whose images reflect the political tensions, contradictions, and pressures of his time.