The collected works of Britain’s most wanted artist.
Artistic genius, political activist, painter and decorator, mythic legend or noto... read full description
Artistic genius, political activist, painter and decorator, mythic legend or noto... read full description
reviews
Apr 20, 2011
Manny
rated it: 
Everyone in Britain knows Banksy, but I'm often surprised to find that my US friends haven't heard of him. He's one of the funniest artists around, and has taken graffiti to a completely new level. The paintings and installations just turn up, in the most unlikely places. Here's one of my favorites, which was discovered one morning on the wall of a family planning clinic in Bristol. (Note the thematically appropriate content). The local authorities were going to remove it, but the doctors asked
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34 comments
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Nov 27, 2010
Mon
rated it: 
Disclaimer: Haters are not cool. I'm not 'hating' Banksy because it's the hipster thing to do (go grab an art school undergrad, you'll see what I mean). One problem with reviewing solo-artist art book is that you can't avoid talking about the actual artist, so here it is. I can't even be bothered to write about graphics. I mean, surely you're only considering buying this book because of the guy not the pretty layout right?
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4 comments
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(15 people liked it)
Apr 13, 2010
notgettingenough
rated it:
Added later: I found it quite moving, his description of being drawn to graffiti the outside of the walls imprisoning the Palestinians and being told off in no uncertain terms by the inhabitants. To beautify the walls is to insult them. Of course. Obvious when you think of it.
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I'm loving this, of course. And it's not that I disagree, exactly, with his messages, but a dominant one is this idea that
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I'm loving this, of course. And it's not that I disagree, exactly, with his messages, but a dominant one is this idea that
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The people who tru
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(8 people liked it)
Jan 27, 2011
Kirsti
rated it:
In 2003, Banksy donated one of his artworks to the Tate Gallery in London. The thing is, the Tate Gallery hadn't actually asked for anything of his. He just walked in (or had a friend walk in, or had a member of the collective walk in--Banksy's true identity is uncertain) and stuck it to the wall. This is just the kind of appalling disrespect that I think the world needs more of.
Over the next couple of years, he made similar donations to the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Ne More...
Over the next couple of years, he made similar donations to the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Ne More...
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Dec 17, 2010
Provocative and clever, but I would argue ultimately vapid. Something like an underground cultural icon for urban youth today. I only see three basic techniques or themes in his methods:
Irony. Soldiers painting peace signs, zoo monkeys holding homeless signs, traffic signs warning of more (or less) serious things. They're all clever enough, but ultimately just artifacts of a stagnant, consumerist generation that's well aware of its stagnation and consumerism. Like television commercial More...
Irony. Soldiers painting peace signs, zoo monkeys holding homeless signs, traffic signs warning of more (or less) serious things. They're all clever enough, but ultimately just artifacts of a stagnant, consumerist generation that's well aware of its stagnation and consumerism. Like television commercial More...
Jul 20, 2011
Rob
rated it: 
I love Banksy's artwork, and this was collection displays it very well. He's a brilliant man with a paint can, and a clever writer as well. I would recommend this book to anyone not familiar with his work. A few quotes of his I enjoyed were:
Some people represent authority without ever possessing any of their own.
The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules--it's people who follow orders that drop bombs an More...
Some people represent authority without ever possessing any of their own.
The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules--it's people who follow orders that drop bombs an More...
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Jan 03, 2009
Young Lightning in Dark Sky
rated it:
Banksy...ah. One of my favorite artistes...Yes, I mean to say that in French, because it sounds better. Anywho, Banksy, a classic Guerilla-Political-Mad-Skilled stencil artist-OK, so he's a graffitti artist. But in this book, you realize just from the photoes that he's a quick-witted guy, with a mysterious twang, which is really cool. His classic humor includes spraypainting on farm animals and a fetish for stencilling rats. My brother, a stencil artist who prefers painting his stencils onto cla
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May 03, 2009
Nicole
rated it:
If you do not know Banksy, you do not know art.
Art as in confrontational, public, political, and utter satire.
He's a tagger/graffiti artist (supposedly anonymous) who bombs* London and the English countryside.
*bombing is the sorta-militant, hip-hop term for "defacing" public areas with your statement in graffiti. For taggers - it's all about the 'get-up' - ie, how frequently you bomb- how daringly public it is (like on the wall of a London Police Station in the middle More...
Art as in confrontational, public, political, and utter satire.
He's a tagger/graffiti artist (supposedly anonymous) who bombs* London and the English countryside.
*bombing is the sorta-militant, hip-hop term for "defacing" public areas with your statement in graffiti. For taggers - it's all about the 'get-up' - ie, how frequently you bomb- how daringly public it is (like on the wall of a London Police Station in the middle More...
Aug 03, 2011
Jamie
rated it:
“Nobody ever listened to me until they didn’t know who I was.”
When I lived in LA a few years ago, I went to a downtown warehouse after receiving a text message with the address. Banksy was in town, and in true clandestine fashion, the location of his show was a secret until just hours before it opened. I was impressed. I had never heard of Banksy, but his highly successful, clandestine, guerilla marketing intrigued me. I did a Google search on him and was even more impressed with the More...
When I lived in LA a few years ago, I went to a downtown warehouse after receiving a text message with the address. Banksy was in town, and in true clandestine fashion, the location of his show was a secret until just hours before it opened. I was impressed. I had never heard of Banksy, but his highly successful, clandestine, guerilla marketing intrigued me. I did a Google search on him and was even more impressed with the More...
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May 26, 2009
G (galen)
rated it:
First of all, you can find out a little about Banksy, the pseudo-anonymous graffiti artist, Here.
The copyright page of this book contains the label "Copyright is for Losers" along with the statement that "against his better judgment Banksy has asserted his right... to be identified as the author of this work." There is also a disclaimer from the publisher: "This book shows the creative/artist element of graffiti art and is not meant to encourage or induce gra More...
The copyright page of this book contains the label "Copyright is for Losers" along with the statement that "against his better judgment Banksy has asserted his right... to be identified as the author of this work." There is also a disclaimer from the publisher: "This book shows the creative/artist element of graffiti art and is not meant to encourage or induce gra More...
Jan 21, 2009
Keith
rated it:
British graffiti, guerilla installation, etc. artist's book of documented works and quotes. It's great fun for anyone with a bit of an anarchist bent to their personality. Even if, for some reason, you strongly disapprove of graffiti, you gotta admit Banksy's stuff is pretty cool (I think you do anyway, but who am I to tell you what to think). He may be too well known and hip for his political message to be heard now, unfortunately... I'm not sure, but it's my sense that to a lot of folks onc
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Dec 08, 2008
Tatiana
rated it:
about a month or so ago i was walking home on houston street and noticed one of those huge side-of-a-building ads. it was a giant rat holding a paint roller with 'no publicity is good publicity' underneath. except underneath the white background of the rat appeared to be a fox 5 ad. i couldn't quite figure out if it was some weird ad-pretending-not-to-be-an-ad, or something else, and then just chalked it up to weird NYC shit.
a week later there's a NY times article about this guy More...
a week later there's a NY times article about this guy More...
Jul 21, 2009
Pheobe
rated it:
The first time I heard of Banksy was on this website. I gathered from the summary and people's reviews that, more or less, HE was worth the read, if not the book itself.
I love art, it's my vessel to any interpretation I choose to have, and if you truly love art, there are no lines that a person can't cross. There are no lines that an artist can't draw, no limits.
I firmly believe artists also think differently than normal people. More often, it is the artist who is the i More...
I love art, it's my vessel to any interpretation I choose to have, and if you truly love art, there are no lines that a person can't cross. There are no lines that an artist can't draw, no limits.
I firmly believe artists also think differently than normal people. More often, it is the artist who is the i More...
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Jul 22, 2011
John
rated it:
I'll make this brief:
Banksy has a message, and it is presented through his artwork. He is raw and honest, even admitting that someone read deeper into his meaning than he had thought it through himself; though he admits he went with it, he also presents the truth in this book. Many artists/writers are pretentious and won't stoop to just being a person who happens to have talent. Banksy seems real and seems to love art for art's sake. His paintings tell a story (see: Banksy painted on More...
Banksy has a message, and it is presented through his artwork. He is raw and honest, even admitting that someone read deeper into his meaning than he had thought it through himself; though he admits he went with it, he also presents the truth in this book. Many artists/writers are pretentious and won't stoop to just being a person who happens to have talent. Banksy seems real and seems to love art for art's sake. His paintings tell a story (see: Banksy painted on More...
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Dec 23, 2011
Tara
rated it:
This book is funny, provocative and at times, borders on anarchy. As Banksy himself states, you will love him, hate him or you won't really care. So, how you feel about this book will be very personal. Does it speak to you, or not?
It did speak to me. I don't hold Banksy on a pedestal as some do, but I appreciate what he is creating. Art that challenges us. "What we need in this race is a lot more streakers." Or maybe just more provocative graffiti writers.
Ban More...
It did speak to me. I don't hold Banksy on a pedestal as some do, but I appreciate what he is creating. Art that challenges us. "What we need in this race is a lot more streakers." Or maybe just more provocative graffiti writers.
Ban More...
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Nov 17, 2009
Gary
rated it:
An amazing collection of images from an artist who has taken the the form of public art we call graphitti and elevated it somewhere above our normal awareness. People walk by his pieces everyday and never see them. Then i saw one of his pieces in New Orleans that had a plexi-glass cases over it so that local anti-graphitti squads won't wash them off. The polarization of opinions about his works are a testimate to how complelling and topical they really are.
The last frontier of unadul More...
The last frontier of unadul More...
Oct 28, 2011
Amber
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Jul 24, 2008
Caleb
rated it:
Banksy has some very clever and thought-provoking art. This book was a very interesting look at some of the art of one of the best (if not the best) stencil-graffiti artist in the world.
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Nov 11, 2009
Kevin
rated it:
Whether making a political statement or merely being provocative for provocation'ss sake, Banksy has put together an impressive body of work. Though I know little about his actual political tendences (other than what is obvious from his art), one does note a certain regrettable inclination towards Adbusters-style rhetoric, though he certainly deserves credit for his paintings on the Israeli apartheid wall. Regrettably, Banksy adds little text to contextualize his graffiti, and what he does incl
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May 09, 2010
Maggie
rated it:
Like many people, I just find the story of Banksy -- a sort of artist Robin Hood -- incredibly compelling. In my head this most elusive of graffiti artists looks like Sean Bean and drives a Lotus Elan or something like that. This book spares the words and lavishes the photographs, letting Banksy's political statements, hastily and secretly sprayed onto walls, speak for themselves. If Banksy was just an anarchist, rustling with discontent, this book, and his art, would be unimpressive. But Banksy
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Jul 12, 2009
Jamil
rated it:
"The people who run our cities don't understand graffiti because they think nothing has the right to exist unless it makes a profit...They say graffiti frightens people and is symbolic of the decline in society, but graffiti is only dangerous in the mind of three types of people; politicians, advertising executives and graffiti writers.
"The people who truly deface our neighborhoods are the companies that scrawl their giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to More...
Dec 21, 2009
Bryce
rated it:
Banksy is the most original artist (or potentially "artists"...) living today. Screw Matthew Barney's "Cremaster" series and all the Rothko and Rauschenberg nonsense some of the more effete curators shove down your throats. This is art at its most emotional and provocative, and it's in book form (which I assume pisses him off to no end).
Anti-establishment, anti-consumer, anti-intelligencia, and pretty much any other "anti-fill-in-the-blank" you can thr More...
Anti-establishment, anti-consumer, anti-intelligencia, and pretty much any other "anti-fill-in-the-blank" you can thr More...
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Jul 24, 2011
Rick
rated it:
This is an art book, but here some of my favorite quotes:
"Despite what they say graffitti is not the lowest form of art...it's actually one of the more honest forms available.
A wall has always been the best place to publish your work.
A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to.
Why would someone just paint pictures of a revolutionary when you can actually behave like one instead?
Sometimes I feel so sick at More...
"Despite what they say graffitti is not the lowest form of art...it's actually one of the more honest forms available.
A wall has always been the best place to publish your work.
A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to.
Why would someone just paint pictures of a revolutionary when you can actually behave like one instead?
Sometimes I feel so sick at More...
Oct 26, 2011
James
rated it:
I love this book because I got this from a friend a while back as a birthday present and I love it! I still read it over and over to get inspiration from a graffiti artist as good as Banksy! as a artist i always want to get better at art all the time and I think this book has given me inspiration to do just that.In this book you could see some great great artwork and some that might make you think about what it is a little bit.This book is different from the other art book because the art that i
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Jun 12, 2011
Milan/zzz
rated it:
This was brilliant. I love Banksy's work. I like satiric and quite unsubtle way to send his message to the world. I like his uncompromising attitude. Umm.. well I like everything about him :)
I was so excited to actually see part of what he has done on The Separating Wall between Israel and Palestine. Part about that in the book was quite emotional, what the old man in Palestine told him (sorry I gave book as a birthday gift to a friend so I can't quote from it but it was something like thi More...
I was so excited to actually see part of what he has done on The Separating Wall between Israel and Palestine. Part about that in the book was quite emotional, what the old man in Palestine told him (sorry I gave book as a birthday gift to a friend so I can't quote from it but it was something like thi More...
May 05, 2009
Meghan
rated it:
This guy is definitely the best at what he does. I love going through this book over and over and finding new subtleties on each page. His art will crack you up and make you think...I like the little rats especially (you cant go wrong with rats in hats). Check out the tips for stenciling at the end...its very clever. "The time of getting fame for your name on its own is over. Artwork that is only about wanting to be famous will never make you famous. Fame is a by-product of doing somethin
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Jan 10, 2012
Becky
rated it:
Ok, I admit there wasn't much reading involved for this one. It's mostly a collection of pictures of street art that the artist took himself (before the paintings were taken down or painted over) but there are quick anecdotes, quotes and quips that are definitely worth reading. One thing that stood out was his point of view on corporations using the canvases of our lives as someplace to advertise. Banksy writes " they expect to be able to shout their message in your face from every availabl
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Feb 01, 2010
Private Grave
rated it:
Whether an individual or a crew Banksy work is probably one of the most copied, inspirational and recognizable stencil art in the world right now. When you pick up this book you are given minor back stories that develop the Banksy character and help to draw you into Banksy’s world of graffiti. Not only is the art work presented in the book brilliant, but it also features some witty quotes to help to show you Banksy’s not just a vandal, he’s an intellectual as well.
Buy two copies, y More...
Buy two copies, y More...
Jan 25, 2009
Erik
rated it:
I love street art and guerilla advertising. This book has it all. The creme de la creme of the world. While you may not look at street art or graffiti as "real art", hopefully, it willrovide the reader with some insight into the minds of these creative people as they attempt to add humor, insight or a pause to reflect aboujt what's going on in our ever increasingly chaotic world that attempts to grab our attention for selling antacids or cartoon clowns designed to make children crav
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Nov 23, 2010
Raleigh
rated it:
When I think of graffiti I see images of trains, snuck up on probably in the middle of the night, bolstering the name of some gang in that typical "wildstyle" fashion (you know, the 3-dimensional kind that you can't even read? -It should be noted here that I actually don't have a problem with this kind of graffiti nor do I think that it's often the work of a gang, but you know, stereotypes?)
And I think this is what most people picture; certainly, most (at least not in the US) are More...
And I think this is what most people picture; certainly, most (at least not in the US) are More...
