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The Maid, once in Regent’s Park Road, Chalk Farm

Published: 17 May, 2012
by GERALD ISAAMAN

MENTION the name to a stranger in the street and they’re likely to know instantly whom you are talking about. That’s the kind of automatic fame few achieve.

Banksy’s true identity remains secret to millions of admirers round the world, a legendary outlaw who equally makes huge sums of money through his exploitation of the subculture of street graffiti.

Is it a new art form that disturbs our conscience with its subtle stencilled social, political and ethical messages – or, as others equally insist, a senseless form of vandalism not to be tolerated?

Eighteen months ago doyen investigative reporter Will Ellsworth-Jones was given the opportunity to delve into the life and work of someone he regards as a legendary outlaw, a phenomenon whose audacious raids on famed museums round the world has produced astounding results and headlines – plus laughter and ferocious fun from his political prods at society’s ongoing decay.

Indeed, his commis­sion by Camden Town publishers Aurum came in the wake of Time magazine including Banksy in its list of the 100 most influential people in the world, along with President Obama, Apple’s Steve Jobs and, yes, Lady Gaga.

Banksy, an unknown public schoolboy from Bristol, claims that he needs anonymity to protect himself from the forces of law and order. He explains with typical wit: “I don’t know why people are so keen to put the details of their private life in public – they forget that invisibility is a superpower.”

And there is the dilemma in that a graffiti war between Banksy and another street artist known as Robbo has resulted in their work being wiped out in mutual disrespect.

“When I started there were quite a few Banksys still around,” Ellsworth-Jones, 68-year-old former Sunday Times chief reporter and New York correspondent, told me. “It was like a wonderful treasure hunt.”

He set out on his travels from his home at the Angel, Islington, and if he didn’t find any uncontaminated Banksy works there were often others who had also created visual protests to outrageous events.

“There were a lot of examples around Camden and Islington but, sadly, nearly all of them have gone. I was filming in front of one in Clipstone Street, Fitzrovia, last week.

“It reads, ‘If graffiti changed the world it would be illegal’. That has survived for a year, but it is quite heavily protected by a Perspex shield screwed on the wall by someone other than Banksy which takes away a bit of the effect.

“My favourite Banksy was on a chemist shop in Essex Road,” he said. “Two children are saluting a Tesco flag which has been run up by a third child. The flag is sitting on an electricity cable, which has been cleverly transformed into a flag pole by Banksy. But even this has been ruined in the graffiti war.”

Nevertheless, while Angelie Jolie and Brad Pitt viewed his work in Los Angeles and forked out almost $400,000, Ellsworth-Jones personally rescued one iconic Banksy – a rat holding a microphone he spotted at Moorfields Eye Hospital – by writing to the authorities, who sold it off at auction for a worthwhile £30,000.

Surprisingly, Ellsworth-Jones decided at the start that his mission was not to expose Banksy’s true identity, a factor that helped with his numerous interviews. “Sometimes this encouraged people to talk to me, sometimes they still wouldn’t talk,” he explained.

On a trip to Bristol, where Banksy is so well known that he hides behind a newspaper when waiting on the station platform for a train, his friends display incredible loyalty in protecting his identity.

“I had some negotiations with Team Banksy and he might have answered questions by email if they had been shown the manuscript ‘to check the facts’, but I didn’t want to do that,” said Ellsworth-Jones.

“I think people like the mystique of Banksy and a book that spent 300 pages telling you who he was would be a pretty boring book. I find it much more interesting to chart his rise from nowhere – from a man in Bristol to £100,000 selling artist in London today.”

Instead Ellsworth-Jones has used his own considerable skills to write a formidable narrative about a truly remarkable individual and, at the same time, expose some of the contradictions and irritating clichés of the Banksy style – and the whole Banksy saga.

Especially fascinating are the tales of how Banksy managed to display his art in great museums such as Tate Modern, The Louvre in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York with outstanding ease, defeating CCTV and all those guards on duty.

So what is the impact of Banksy’s subversive skills and his running commentary on our sad society?

“He makes us think, though he isn’t consistent enough to make us change our vote,” is Ellsworth-Jones’ assess­ment. “For instance, several of his pieces mock the all-pervasive CCTV cameras. He does make you stop and think about whether or not we want them.

“Change my vote? I suspect not, but perhaps just stopping and thinking is enough.”

He worries that Banksy’s own joke – “I can’t believe you morons actually buy this shit” – will eventually dissuade collectors from doing so, though with the art market proving the safest hideaway for recession investment, time will tell.

His own epitaph is that Banksy’s achievement is truly extraordinary. He regards the man behind the wall as a unique talent whose art “has attracted a whole new audience to a world badly in need of new fans”.

• Banksy: the Man Behind the Wall. By Will Ellsworth-Jones. Aurum Press, £20