false 5 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sun May 03 17:55:06 -0700 2009 Sun May 03 18:22:23 -0700 2009 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 of the afternoon where millions will see it as opposed to a farmer's barn in the middle of the night when no one is around) and how difficult the task of tagging is- repelling off a bridge to tag some billboard over the freeway or in New York’s Metropolitan Museum or hell - on a live COW, rather than - wow, slapping a stencil on the sidewalk for 3 seconds and running away.

Banksy takes public expression, freedom of expression, and urban blight to political extremes - and is very cheeky and witty about it. He speaks in the language of the street, and it's beautiful.
It's very hard to encapsulate someone so controversial and brilliant, so just get the book. It's a coffee table size mix of both the art and his message - explanations written occasionally as to what he's trying to say, as well as how and when the pieces went up - and how long they lasted (because, in the eyes of the Public Works Department - and the Po-Po - he's a bloody vandal and should be jailed.)

Check out his website, it's beautiful. Thankfully his work is captured for posterity in this book.
http://www.banksy.co.uk/]]>