There's more to Banksy than the painting on the wall: the first in-depth investigation into the
mysteries of the world's most famous living artist. Banksy is the world's most famous living
artist yet no one knows who he is. For more than twenty years his wryly political and darkly
humorous spray paintings have appeared mysteriously on urban walls around the globe generating
headlines and controversy. Art critics disdain him but the public (and the art market) love
him. With this generously illustrated book artist and critic Carol Diehl is the first author
to probe the depths of the Banksy mystery. Through her exploration of his paintings
installations writings and Academy Award-nominated film Exit through the Gift Shop Diehl
proves unequivocally that there's more to Banksy than the painting on the wall. Seeing Banksy
as the ultimate provocateur Diehl investigates the dramas that unfold after his works are
discovered with all of their social economic and political implications. She reveals how
this trickster rattles the system whether during his month-long 2013 self-styled New York
residency or his notorious Dismaland of 2015 a full-scale dystopian family theme park
unsuitable for children dedicated to the failure of capitalism. Banksy's work Diehl shows is
a synthesis of conceptual art social commentary and political protest played out not in
museums but where it can have the most effect--on the street in the real world. The questions
Banksy raises about the uses of public and private property the role of the global
corporatocracy the never-ending wars and the gap between artworks as luxury goods and as
vehicles of social expression have never been more relevant.
