LONDON (AP) \u2014 Years before the rise of Instagram, Banksy figured out that the key to real influence lay in not in being famous, exactly, but in being anonymous. <\/p>\n
The mystery of his identity has long been part of the value of his art, which for decades and across continents defied authority from public walls and self-shredded on the auction block. Now, Banksy\u2019s apparent unmasking by the Reuters news agency<\/a> has generated talk about whether the works themselves retain their cultural and financial value.<\/p>\n It also raises the question: Why pop the red balloon of his mystique in the first place? Many Banksy fans mourned the loss of the mystery and lashed out at the news outlet. One said it was like being told without warning that Santa Claus doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like they are telling me how a magic trick is done,\u201d said Thomas Evans, a Denver-based artist on Instagram. \u201cSometimes I just want to enjoy the magic trick.\u201d<\/p>\n But some art experts say the murals and the message will survive Banksy\u2019s naming because his appeal wasn\u2019t driven solely by his anonymity. He and his works \u2014 mischievous and also dark \u2014 stand as witnesses to injustice, oppression and inequality around the world, from the artist\u2019s native England to walled-off Bethlehem<\/a> and war-ravaged Ukraine. Subtract his anonymity, they say, and the work still inspires reflection and discussion.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople buy his works because they absolutely love it,\u201d said Acoris Andipa, director of the Andipa gallery in London. \u201cThe main feedback that I get is that they really, frankly, don\u2019t care if they know who he is.\u201d <\/p>\n Naming the ghost \u2014 and the backlash \u2014 is engagement, too<\/p>\n Banksy, long thought to have been born Robin Gunningham around 1972, grew out of a tradition of street artists who viewed the undercover act of posting their art in public as a subversive form of expression. The postindustrial landscape of his native Bristol was his canvas and gallery. The walls of London, New York and elsewhere gave him a global stage just before the rise of social media. <\/p>\n Banksy\u2019s apparent identity has been an open secret among protective fellow artists, and long been easy to find online for those who wanted to know. The Daily Mail reported<\/a> in 2008 \u201ccompelling evidence suggesting\u201d that was the artist\u2019s birth name. It has been published by other news outlets, including by The Associated Press in 2016<\/a>, as part of their coverage of the detective work. <\/p>\n Reuters reported last week that after The Daily Mail\u2019s story, Banksy changed his legal name to David Jones \u2014 the second most-popular name in Britain. It\u2019s also the given name of another rock star, the late David Bowie, whose Ziggy Stardust avatar inspired a 2012 Banksy painting of Queen Elizabeth II.<\/p>\n Bansky\u2019s lawyer didn\u2019t respond to a request for comment, and the artist\u2019s spokeswoman declined to participate in this story.<\/p>\n Reuters pieced together that a David Jones traveled to Ukraine with a well-known associate of Banksy\u2019s in late 2022 \u2014 just before the artist\u2019s work began appearing on buildings that had been bombed by Russia. Banksy later confirmed<\/a> that he\u2019d created seven murals in the war zone, including one of a child<\/a> flipping over a grown man who is wearing a black belt. Russian President Vladimir Putin practices judo.<\/p>\n There\u2019s evidence that even some in the establishment he was protesting have accepted Banksy. They didn\u2019t arrest him, for example, after the Royal Courts of Justice removed a Banksy stencil<\/a> depicting a judge in a traditional wig and gown beating an unarmed protester with a gavel. Some street artists groused that they might be arrested for creating such graffiti \u2014 but when it\u2019s a Banksy, it\u2019s art. <\/p>\n Robin Gunningham wasn\u2019t always so elusive<\/p>\n On Sept. 17, 2000, a Robin Gunningham was arrested for defacing a Marc Jacobs billboard atop a building on Hudson Street in New York. <\/p>\n In a handwritten signed confession, he described the work on the night in question: \u201cI had been out drinking at a nightclub with friends when I decided to make a humorous adjustment to a billboard on top of the property,\u201d he wrote in court records unearthed by Reuters and confirmed by the AP. \u201cI painted eyeshadow a new mouth and a speach(sic) bubble\u201d on the photo of a male model. He was charged with a misdemeanor.<\/p>\n The artist doesn\u2019t need an alleged naming to make news. He created multiple works<\/a> just in London in 2025<\/a>, and grabbed headlines elsewhere<\/a> for having his art sold<\/a> or auctioned for millions<\/a>. But Banksy has courted a public image centered around morality, justice and guerrilla tactics \u2014 he\u2019s often likened to Robin Hood or Batman. <\/p>\n