The Mystery of Banksy

Banksy time and again creates tasty and adequate images like that of Leanne the chambermaid, the Bomb Hugger, the Radar Rat or the black girl that overpaints the swastika on the wall that Banksy had painted there before. He is quick and handy to react to stuff like the corona crisis and he wants to show to people in distress that someone is there, someone cares for them, someone wants to bring a little relief to them. Occassionally he creates iconic images like the Balloon Girl. He acts like a very good publicity agency. One of that kind that time and again receives prizes for very good and creative adverstisements and advertisement stunts. What he does is creative, but not abysmally creative. It is a bit superficial, but not very superficial. This is a trap he skillfully avoids. If there are complex global or social issues, Banksy will adress them in a simplistic way. He acts like a world conscience. Like a single individual that cleans the atmosphere. Jeff Koons said that when he had to visit a modern art exhibition at school it had irritated him so much that he felt he never would want to have anything to do with art in his life. Based on that, he later decided to do art that will not unsettle people and will never make them uncomfortable with themselves. Banksy does not seem to be far from that either. As it appears, Banksy, in general, wants to make people feel good and comfortable with themselves. In a way that they do not really need to change or to grow: they are more or less super just the way they are. Including their aptitude to be concerned over global problems, war, racism or inequality. People, in general, are very concerned over global problems, war, racism or inequality. Never underestimate their capacity of people to be concerned over such issues. If this still does not make you feel good and feel very, very comfortable with yourself, then, well, it is quite likely that Banksy will start sucking your dick or give you a foot masssage. He will do everything in his power to make you feel good. Like his graffitis are often showing children, Banksy also does art that is interesting for children, and for the whole family. His Dismaland – A Family Theme Park Unsuitable for Children is particularly enteraining for children. That is no mean achievement, of course. Banksy is also good to the art world. In somehow mysterious and therefore interesting ways that can be talked about (without the need for more sophiticated intellectual analysis nor knowledge) he acts like a sparring partner to the art industry. Today´s art world likes to question, critisise and subvert itself (especially it delights on „institutional critique“) because it is insecure as the true creative potency within art (that is identical to itself and complex enough in order not to permanently need to „critisise“ and „question“ itself) has withered for some unknown reasons. Therefore the art world is in need to do something else. Not least as there is a lot of money involved in it. Banksy´s  stunt to have his own artwork destroyed at a Sotheby´s auction further increased its market value. Not a bad desicion. There´s a film about Banksy called Exit Through the Gift Shop. I haven´t seen it, but I have seen the gift shop at the current Banksy Wanderzirkus exhibition. It´s a huge gift shop, and you can buy even a Banksy lavatory seat there. If you´re an artist and people like your stuff and want to buy it, that´s cool. Turn it into a commodity, no problem. However, and especially if you drive it to such extends, it will interfere a bit with your anti-capitalist aura and contaminate it. If you willfully accumulate riches that way in order to donate it to charity, then it´s, of course, cool again. Banksy is nice to everyone. There is not so much mystery about Banksy actually. It is a well-dosed, meticulously constructed mystery, as it may occasionally appear. The true identity of Banksy is unknown. We will assume that Banksy deeply cares for people and their problems. Of course, he will also need to care for himself. There is nothing wrong with caring for yourself too. The mystery of Banksy however is that it can also be seen – in a non-contradictory way – as a publicity agency and a machinery that is exclusively devoted to increasing its own market value and widen its spheres of circulation. That is probably not what it is. But that is the true mystery that it poses.

Recently I have been to the Moco Museum in Amsterdam. The Moco Museum is devoted to the most contemporary art, notably to that of Banksy, and to present this art to the younger generation. It is full of stupidities, but I have to say that I liked the museum. It was a pleasant experience I still cannot, however, fully decypher. It took me more by surprise than the Rijksmuseum. I cannot finally decypher contemporary art either, but finally I like this age of apparently mindless oddities and idiosyncracies that colonise the museum space and that make today´s art. It is probably better than the age of Abstract Expressionism or Surrealism. Modern art was mysterious, but it was also identical to itself. Today the atmosphere is more fluid and probably also more enigmatic. Maybe art has never been as mysterious as it is today. It is probably that mixture between bluntness and underdeterminedness that makes it cosy and immersive. That it resists to be truly immersive although art usually calls for immersion. Its mysterious superficiality that gives it a light weight. It is an intellectual riddle and it opens the space of imagination, actually wider than ever before. A society that can afford to render its art so ineffective must have reached a very high level of civilisation, sophistication, rationality and complexity. It must be a very interesting and stimulating society. As always, I have failed to thoroughly describe it. Such is the essence of mysteries. Mysteries invite us to an ongoing journey.