Banksy has been unmasked (again). But does this major Reuters investigation actually tell us something new? | Banksy

Hi Kelly, everyone seems to be speaking about Banksy (once more) – what’s he finished this time?

Hi Nick. So a really long (8,000-word) investigation by Reuters claims it has found the elusive road artist’s true identification, which backs up claims made by the Mail on Sunday British tabloid nearly twenty years in the past that he’s a 52-year-old Bristol-born man known as Robin Gunningham, now going by the title of David Jones.

Wait…did not we already know that? Or was it speculated to be the man from Massive Attack?

Sort of. Previous reviews instructed that Robert Del Naja, the co-founder of Massive Attack – a pioneer in trip-hop, which is a music style that additionally has its roots in Bristol – was Banksy. Now evidently Naja is Gunningham’s secret companion/enabler/scout/gatekeeper.

Gotcha. So what did Reuters uncover in the way in which of proof? Is there a smoking gun? Or a rat (ahem) within the ranks?

No rat, only a rat-faced Banksy scaling a Manhattan brownstone to deface a Marc Jacobs poster again in 2000. This wasn’t a chunk of expertly stenciled political artwork, it was a careless try to color “goofy buck teeth” on the implausibly good face of a male mannequin. The cops caught him within the wee hours of Saturday morning and he clearly wasn’t clear-headed sufficient to do what rogue road artists at all times do in these conditions – signal a pretend title to a confession to keep away from a legal cost. He signed the confession Robin Gunningham and copped a $310 US high-quality for “disorderly conduct”. Reuters uncovered the NYPD report 24 years later.

And then there’s the Ukraine connection …

The Ukrainian connection?

Reuters went on a reverse forensic journey. It discovered that after the primary 2008 unmasking by the Mail on Sunday, all proof of Robin Gunningham’s existence vanished – no tax information, employment information, property filings, zilch. In 2022 a bunch of Banksy artworks had started appearing on bombed out buildings in Ukraine. Reuters checked the immigration and border management information and discovered that Robert Del Naja had entered the besieged nation across the identical time. Aha! Back to the Massive Attack hyperlink.

Naja’s touring companion was somebody named David Jones, whose birthdate occurred to match the date of start listed for Gunningham on the 2000 New York arrest file. There are about 15,000 blokes known as David Jones within the UK (most of them in all probability residing in Wales), so what higher strategy to go off the grid by adopting a reputation so aggressively averaging it capabilities as a human camouflage.

Indeed, it is famously exhausting to maintain up with the Joneses. Oh, and I get it, “Robin BANKS.” Groan. It all suits collectively. This all sounds fairly convincing. Are you satisfied? Does it match with what we knew up to now?

It could not have a crimson dot on it but, however I’m ready to have the proof framed and mounted within the Louvre (as soon as they’ve overhauled their security). It backs up loads of what Banksy’s previous manager, Steve Lazarideswrote in his two-volume chronicle Banksy Captured, printed in 2019 and 2020, together with the admission Banksy certainly was the artist caught in the act in New York.

Banksy’s longtime lawyer, Mark Stephens, instructed Reuters that Banksy “does not accept that many of the details contained within your inquiry are correct.” It’s not precisely a denial.

And do not forget there’s additionally that outdated BBC recorded interview that resurfaced 20 years later in 2023the place the interviewer asks Banksy if his actual title is Robert Banks, to which the artist replies: “It’s Robbie.” OK, so that does not rule out Robert Del Naja (who additionally makes use of the road title 3D) however check out the Massive Attack album covers Naja himself has illustrated. They’re plain creepy, like a pharmaceutically induced nightmare. Banksy’s work could be politically acerbic, but it surely’s grounded in wit and whimsy – extra seemingly the product of some tender-hearted dweeb who will get wasted in New York and paints goofy enamel on billboards.

If it looks like Robinfeels like a Robbie, and travels to conflict zones like a Dave, it is in all probability Gunningham.

Why ought to we care?

We in all probability should not. The biggest trick Banksy ever pulled wasn’t making a portray shred itself; it was disguising a middle-aged bloke from Bristol, in all probability with children and a mortgage, as a world city guerrilla, laughing at us behind his cozy Marks & Spencer hoodie for the previous 30 years.