99 Quotes by Banksy
Banksy is an anonymous street artist, political activist, and provocateur whose works have left an indelible mark on the art world. While the identity of Banksy remains unknown, the impact of his artwork is widely recognized. Banksy's art often combines street art techniques with thought-provoking imagery and social commentary, challenging societal norms and power structures. His stenciled artworks can be found on walls and public spaces across the world, sparking conversations about topics such as capitalism, war, and government surveillance.
Banksy's works are characterized by their sharp wit, subversive messages, and the ability to create powerful visual statements. His anonymity adds an air of mystery and intrigue to his art, fueling speculation and generating buzz around his exhibitions and public interventions. Banksy's art has transcended traditional art boundaries, entering the mainstream and attracting attention from both art enthusiasts and the general public. His ability to use art as a means of social and political critique has made him a cultural icon and a source of inspiration for artists and activists alike. Banksy's work reminds us of the power of art to challenge the status quo and to provoke thought and discussion in society.
Banksy Quotes
Imagine a city where graffiti wasn't illegal, a city where everybody could draw whatever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall - it's wet.
People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish... but that's only if it's done properly.
Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don't come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make someone smile while they're having a piss.
Speak softly, but carry a big can of paint. (Meaning)
Live as a villain, die as a hero
Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing.
Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place.
Writing graffiti is about the most honest way you can be an artist. It takes no money to do it, you don't need an education to understand it, and there's no admission fee.
Bus stops are far more interesting and useful places to have art than in museums. Graffiti has more chance of meaning something or changing stuff than anything indoors. Graffiti has been used to start revolutions, stop wars, and generally is the voice of people who aren't listened to. Graffiti is one of those few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don't come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make somebody smile while they're having a piss.
The people who run our cities dont understand graffiti because they think nothing has the right to exist unless it makes a profit... the people who truly deface our neighborhoods are the companies that scrawl giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff.... any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours, it belongs to you ,, its yours to take, rearrange and re use.Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
If at first you don't succeed, Call an airstrike.
Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.
There are four basic human needs; food, sleep, sex and revenge.
You're mind is working at its best when you're being paranoid. You explore every avenue and possibility of your situation at high speed with total clarity.
A wall is a very big weapon. It's one of the nastiest things you can hit someone with.
Not everyone will understand your journey. That's okay. You're here to live your life, not to make everyone understand.
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 and massacre villages.
Is graffiti art or vandalism? That word has a lot of negative connotations and it alienates people, so no, I don't like to use the word 'art' at all.
A lot of mothers will do anything for their children, except let them be themselves.
The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.
The art world is the biggest joke going. It's a rest home for the overprivileged, the pretentious, and the weak. And modern art is a disgrace - never have so many people used so much stuff and taken so long to say so little.
Become good at cheating and you never need to become good at anything else.
Should # graffiti be judged on the same level as modern art? Of course not: It's way more important than that
Bus stops are far more interesting and useful places to have art than in museums.
Nobody ever listened to me until they didn't know who I was
When you go to an art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires.
It doesn't take much to be a successful artist-all you need to do is dedicate your entire life to it.
If you want to say something and have people listen then you have to wear a mask. If you want to be honest then you have to live a lie.
The human race is the most stupid and unfair kind of race. A lot of the runners don't even get decent sneakers or clean drinking water. Some runners are born with a massive head start, every possible help along the way and still the referees seem to be on their side. It's not surprising a lot of people have given up compeating altogether and gone to sit in the grandstand, eat junk and shout abuse. What the human race needs is a lot more streakers.
Graffiti ultimately wins out over proper art because it becomes part of your city, it' s a tool; "I'll meet you in that pub, you know, the one opposite that wall with a picture of a monkey holding a chainsaw". I mean, how much more useful can a painting be than that?
People are fond of using military terms to describe what they do. We call it bombing when we go out painting, when of course it's more like entertaining the troops in a neutral zone, during peacetime in a country without an army.
You don't need planning permission to build castles in the sky
Remember crime against property is not real crime. People look at an oil painting and admire the use of brushstrokes to convey meaning. People look at a graffiti painting and admire the use of a drainpipe to gain access.
The Art we look at is made by only a select few. A small group create, promote, purchase, exhibit and decide the success of Art. Only a few hundred people in the world have any real say. When you go to an Art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires
Think outside the box, collapse the box, and take a f**king sharp knife to it.
Nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent, leave the house before you find something worth staying in for.
The grumpier you are, the more assholes you meet.
All artists are willing to suffer for their work. But why are so few prepared to learn to draw?
If it doesn’t matter, get rid of it. If you can’t get rid of it, it matters.
There's nothing more dangerous than someone who wants to make the world a better place.
Keep your coins, I want change.
Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.
Graffiti is only dangerous in the mind of three types of people; politicians, advertising executives and graffiti writers.
You can win the rat race but you're still a rat.
Film is incredibly democratic and accessible, it's probably the best option if you actually want to change the world, not just re-decorate it.
The bad artists imitate, the great artists steal.
A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to.
People who get up early in the morning cause war, death and famine.
At this time of year it's easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity - the lies, the corruption, the abuse.
All graffiti is low-level dissent, but stencils have an extra history. They've been used to start revolutions and to stop wars
The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.
Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world I can't even finish my second apple pie.
It's a very frustrated feeling you get when the only people with good photos of you work are the police department.
My lawyer's opinion is that the cops might not actually be able to charge me with criminal damage any more - because theoretically my graffiti actually increases the value of property rather than decreasing it. That's his theory, but then my lawyer also believes wearing novelty cartoon ties is a good look.
We can't do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves.
On Painting Rats, and the Glorification of Them. They exist without permission. They are hated, hunted and persecuted. They live in quiet desperation amongst the filth. And yet they are capable of bringing entire civilizations to their knees. If you are dirty, insignificant, and unloved then rats are the ultimate role model.
One Original Thought is worth 1000 Meaningless Quotes.
A recent survey or North American males found 42% were overweight, 34% were critically obese and 8% ate the survey.
T.V. has made going to the theatre seem pointless, photography has pretty much killed painting but graffiti has remained gloriously unspoilt by progress.
Brandalism Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It's yours to take, rearrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
If Michaelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci were alive today they’d be making Avatar, not painting a chapel.
Some people represent authority without ever possessing any of their own.
Stencils are good for two reasons; one - they're quick; two - they annoy idiots.
If you want someone to be ignored then build a life-size bronze statue of them and stick it in the middle of town. It doesn't matter how great you were, it'll always take an unfunny drunk with climbing skills to make people notice you.
Some people criticize me for using sources that are a bit low brow (this quote is from 'Gladiator') but you know what? 'I'm just going to use that hostility to make me stronger, not weaker' as Kelly Rowland said on the X Factor.
Anyone who believes in capital punishment should be shot
I need someone to protect me from all the measures they take in order to protect me.
People seem to think if they dress like a revolutionary they don`t actually have to behave like one.
It's impossible to predict which paintings will last and which won't. In New Orleans I painted on a dilapidated shop in a street littered with abandoned cars and rotting mattresses, then two hours later the piece was gone. It turned out I'd picked the side of a crack house and the proprietor didn't like the attention.
But there's no way round it-commercial success is a mark of failure for a graffiti artist. We're not supposed to be embraced in that way. When you look at how society rewards so many of the wrong people, it's hard not to view financial reimbursement as a badge of self-serving mediocrity.
Fight the fighters, not their wars.
Nobody knows what you feel inside unless you tell them.
We don’t need any more heroes; we just need someone to take out the recycling.
You owe the companies nothing. You especially don't owe them any courtesy. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs.
Today's art has been cancelled due to police activity.
Nothing is black and white, and there is no purity and there is no such thing has justice.
People either love me or they hate me, or they don't really care.
When he time comes to leave, just walk away quietly and don't make any fuss.
I tell myself I use art to promote dissent, but maybe I am just using dissent to promote my art. I plead not guilty to selling out. But I plead it from a bigger house than I used to live in.
The one thing you can rely on is if you get disturbed halfway through a painting and it looks a bit naff, then someone will preserve that piece, remove it and a few months later it'll be paraded round Sotheby's by people wearing white gloves.
If you have a statue in the city centre you could go past it every day on your way to school and never even notice it, right. But as soon as someone puts a traffic cone on its head, you've made your own sculpture.
Art is not like other culture because its success is not made by its audience. The public fill concert halls and cinemas every day, we read novels by the millions, and buy records by the billions. 'We the people' affect the making and quality of most of our culture, but not our art.
In the future, everybody will be anonymous for 15 minutes.
The difference between freedom and slavery is one thin line
Although you might have to creep about at night and lie to your mum it’s actually one of the more honest art forms available. There is no elitism or hype, it exhibits on the best walls a town has to offer and nobody is put off by the price of admission.
If you don't own a train company then you go and paint on one instead... it all comes from that thing at school when you had to have name tags in the back of something... that makes it belong to you. You can own half the city by scribbling your name over it.
Once upon a time there was a bear and a bee who lived in a wood and were the best of friends. All summer long the bee collected nectar from morning to night while the bear lay on his back basking in the long grass. When winter came the bear realised he had nothing to eat and thought to himself 'I hope that busy little bee will share some of his honey with me.' But the bee was nowhere to be found - he had died of a stress induced coronary disease.
People who enjoy waving flags don't deserve to have one.
As far as I can tell the only thing worth looking at in most museums of art is all the schoolgirls on daytrips with the art departments.
If you are dirty, insignificant and unloved then rats are the ultimate role model.
Traditional graffiti writers have a bunch of rules they like to stick to, and good luck to them, but I didn't become a graffiti artist so I could have somebody else tell me what to do. If you're the type who gets sentimental about people scribbling over your stuff, I suggest graffiti is probably not the right hobby for you.
Painting something that defies the law of the land is good. Painting something that defies the law of the land and the law of gravity at the same time is ideal.
Gaza is often described as 'the world's largest open air prison' because no-one is allowed to enter or leave. But that seems a bit unfair to prisons - they don’t have their electricity and drinking water cut off randomly almost every day.
You're advised not to drink the replica Arab spring water.
You live in the city and all the time there are signs telling you what to do and billboards trying to sell you something.
If you feel dirty, insignificant or unloved, then rats are a good role model. They exist without permission, they have no respect for the hierarchy of society, and they have sex 50 times a day.
Policemen and security guards wear hats with a peak that comes down low over their eyes. Apparently this is for psychological reasons. Eyebrows are very expressive and you appear a lot more authoritative if you keep them covered up. The advantage of this is that it makes a lot harder for cops to see anything more than six foot off the ground. Which is why painting rooftops and bridges is so easy.
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. Any fame is a by-product of making something that means something. You don't go to a restaurant and order a meal because you want to have a sh*t.
There's obviously nothing wrong with selling your art - only an idiot with a trust fund would tell you otherwise. But it's confusing to know how far you should take it.
This is a big surprise I don't agree with the concept of award ceremonies, but I'm prepared to make an exception for the ones I'm nominated for. The last time there was a naked man covered in gold paint in my house, it was me.
― Banksy Quotes
Banksy (Artist) Life Highlights
- Banksy is an anonymous England-based street artist, political activist, and filmmaker.
- His true identity remains a mystery, and he has managed to keep his real name and face hidden from the public.
- Banksy's art combines stenciling techniques with satirical and thought-provoking images that often carry political or social messages.
- He gained widespread recognition in the early 2000s for his street art, which appeared on walls and buildings in various cities around the world.
- His work often challenges authority, social norms, and capitalism, and it frequently comments on issues like war, poverty, and government surveillance.
- Banksy's art has a distinctive style, characterized by its dark humor, political commentary, and use of rats, monkeys, and other animals as symbolic figures.
- He has created numerous iconic pieces, including "Girl with a Balloon" and "The Flower Thrower," which have become cultural symbols.
- Banksy's art has been exhibited in galleries and museums, and his work has been sold for millions of dollars at auctions.
- Despite his fame, Banksy continues to shun the traditional art world and prefers to maintain his anonymity and outsider status.
- He has directed the documentary film "Exit Through the Gift Shop," which explores the world of street art and received critical acclaim.
- Banksy's identity has been the subject of much speculation, with various theories and claims about who he might be.
- His art continues to captivate and challenge viewers, sparking conversations about art, society, and the power of public expression.
* The editor of this curated page made every effort to maintain information accuracy, including any sayings, quotes, facts, dates, or key life events.
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
