We’ve ranked Banksy’s stunts from craziest to wildest

Banksy is a modern Midas. If everything he touches turns to gold, it represents something of a curse for those who spend their time speaking out against capitalism, private property, war and oppression. His works end up being recovered by brands or large companies and end up being sold by the millions to end up in private collections or museums – initiatives that the street artist detests.

From year to year, from season to season, Banksy punctuates the appearance of his militant works with flashes that shake the world of art and the media. A look back at five of the biggest heists of his career, often cynical and always militant events.

There are many brands, public and private figures, auction houses and so on, who try to surf on Banksy’s celebrity. The height lies in the fact that it is the artist’s disruptive dimension that evokes brands that are anything but rebellious and rather good capitalists, good owners.

In this month of November 2022, it is the Guess brand that has “merrily” served with one of Banksy’s works “Sk [s]we agree”in one of its London stores: “So it seems normal to me to do like them and steal their clothes”said the street performer his Instagram accountoffering his subscribers to steal clothes from the store in question.

Enough to give back to Guess, offering it in passing “the most publicity the brand has had since 1993”, as noted by a user in the comments. Banksy is used to gallery owners and entrepreneurs using his image to their advantage, and he tirelessly tries to denounce them to his fans. ON child site Pest Controlwarns Internet users that no exhibits are his work and that no organization other than Pest Control has the right to sell his works.

In August 2020, Banksy chartered a vessel to rescue migrants in the Mediterranean. Named Louise Michel, in honor of the 19th-century French anarchist, the ship decorated with the British artist’s graffiti departed on August 18, 2020 from the Spanish port of Burriana, near Valencia, under the command of Pia Klemp, a German activist for the human rights known for leading several other rescue vessels, including the Sea-Watch 3. “Hi Pia, I read your story in the newspapers. You look like a badass”he had written to her in an email.

After less than three days at sea, the boat was forced to call for help, counting “219 survivors on a thirty-meter boat. 33 people are still in a lifeboat and there is one deceased person in a body bag.”. The appeals went unheeded for a long time: six hours went by without the European authorities arriving to assist them. In January 2022 the Louise Michel returned to the sea, this time rescuing around thirty people along the Libyan coast.

Impossible to go back to Banksy’s most beautiful shots without noticing his famous self-destructed work on 5 October 2018. While one of his most famous creations, Girl with Balloon, had just found a buyer for the tidy sum of £1.04 million (approx. 1.18 million euros), the little girl with the red balloon had started to tremble, to growl, until she left the frame and self-destructed by passing through a shredder hidden years earlier in the lower part of the frame.

The initiation of the grinder took place in a very dramatic way, immediately after the announcement of the final price and the blow of the auctioneer’s hammer. The canvas was only partially torn as the red heart flying in the air at the top of the work remained intact.

The handsome million reached by the sale of the work was then a record for Banksy, a record since it was largely surpassed by… the work itself. In 2021, the shredded work found the floor of auction houses and fetched £16m. On her Instagram account, the artist accompanied the video of the act with a quote from Picasso: “Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction”.

In 2017, Banksy opened the hotel with “the worst view in the world”. Located in Bethlehem, the Walled Off Hotel was “set up and funded by Banksy” and is now a “independent enterprise” where is it “all profits are fed back into local projects”.

Every picture, every element of decoration and menu is a direct reference to the dramatic situation experienced by the Palestinian population. The wall of one of the bedrooms shows an Israeli soldier and a Palestinian civilian fighting with pillows, while the “piano room” it is decorated in a colonial style to commemorate how Britain conquered Palestine in 1917. “In China, hot scones and tea are served all day, and the Walled Off salad is a must-try”cynically insists the hotel site.

Featuring rooms, a piano bar and a museum, the hotel represents for Banksy a further means of highlighting the situation of the Palestinian people at an international level. On the site of the establishment, it indicates, with regard to visas, that tourists can go wherever they want, “unlike the majority of the Palestinian people”.

In 2015, the street artist was already thinking big when he opened Dismaland, a “astonishment” not really a family, more than five weeks. Quite depressing and very cynical, the park aimed to reflect the problems and atrocities of our modern world.

In addition to the exhibition of the works of about fifty artists, attractions were offered to the public: the one entitled “The boats of migrants” took the form of a sort of duck pond where it was impossible to save the boats. ; a carousel of horses recalled the food scandals of big business; and a police truck submerged in a radioactive pond turned into a playground.

Since 2015 Dismaland has closed its doors. The park was even dismantled, as its materials were transported to Calais to build shelters for the exiles waiting in the city. Managing to remain anonymous, Banksy is never too silent. With a little patience, we will surely be able to add to this list soon – with works supporting the Iranian revolution, perhaps?