A artwork on the shutters of London Zoo has been removed for "safekeeping" and to allow the popular attraction to use its full entrance. The piece, showing a gorilla lifting up a shutter to allow birds and a seal to escape, has been replaced with a replica. The painting was the across London in as many days earlier this month.
A sign posted nearby reads "Banksy woz ere" and apologises to fans of the famous street artist. When the work was first discovered, the zoo used a Perspex cover to “protect it from the glare of the sun”. Announcing the removal on Sunday, London Zoo said it was “still working on exactly what we’re going to do with the artwork, but we’re keen to properly preserve this moment in our history”.
Two of the other pieces in the series, including the silhouettes of elephants in Chelsea’s Edith Grove, have been defaced and another was stolen just hours after it was put up. Banksy’s works across London since 5 August included a rhino mounting a silver Nissan Micra car with a traffic cone on its bonnet in Charlton’s Westmoor Street, a police sentry box in Ludgate Hill transformed into a giant tank of piranhas and a pelican stooping to scoop up a fish on the sign of Bonner’s Fish Bar in Walthamstow. The rhino work was defaced by a man wearing a black balaclava just hours after it was publicly announced, while the silhouette of a wolf howling on a satellite dish was taken from a roof in Peckham.
The sixth piece, a stretching cat on an empty, distressed advertising hoarding, was removed in north west London hours after it was unveiled. Crowds booed as the billboard in Cricklewood was dismantled by three men who said they were hired to take it down for safety reasons. The billboard’s owner said the work would be reassembled at an art gallery.
As ever, there is speculation about Banksy's identity. Who is he? No. Over the years, there have been various theories and claims about Banksy's identity, but none have been confirmed.
Banksy's intentional anonymity allowed him to operate without facing legal repercussions for his often unauthorised street art, which can be considered vandalism in some jurisdictions. It also allowed him to operate however he pleased without fear of being followed by fans or the media. The general assumption is he lives in or near Bristol, but other than that very little is known about him.
In a recording of The Banksy Story, from BBC Radio 4, he described himself as a “painter and decorator” and explained why he also likes to glue works of art to buildings like the Louvre, saying: “You don’t want to get stuck in the same line of work your whole life long, do you?” Since emerging onto the scene in the early 1990s, Banksy has sought to keep his identity a mystery, often wearing masks in the rare interviews he does. He also never reveals the place he will be doing his next artwork, which is often only noticed after members of the public circulate them on social media. However, in November last year, it emerged Banksy "revealed" his name in an .
Former BBC reporter Nigel Wrench interviewed Banksy ahead of his Turf War show in east London and asked if he could include his real name. He queried if the name was Robert Banks, to which he replied: “It’s Robbie.” Banksy generates income through various means, despite his anonymous persona and unconventional approach.
Part of his persona even rejects the concept of "commercial success" and he has in the past encouraged people not to buy his work. Speaking to Village Voice in 2013, the artist said: "Graffiti art has a hard enough life as it is, before you add hedge fund managers wanting to chop it out and hang it over the fireplace. "For the sake of keeping all street art where it belongs, I’d encourage people not to buy anything by anybody, unless it was created for sale in the first place.
" Despite this, he has still likely made a significant sum of money from his work. He has published several books in his time, including best-seller Wall and Piece, and likely generates royalties from that. Banksy also directed an award-winning documentary called Exit Through The Gift Shop, exploring modern and underground art, which generated more than £3m in profit.
On occasion, Banksy has offered the purchase of some of his art through Pest Control, which is the only way he approves of its sale. His Cut & Run exhibition in Glasgow attracted about 180,000 visitors during its 10-week show: his first solo show in 14 years. Although it is hard to know where an anonymous artist is from, he rose to fame in the early 1990s with spray-painted murals on walls in Bristol and has stayed connected to the city and surrounding area ever since.
Banksy's art is all over the world in London, New York City, Paris, Bethlehem and elsewhere. It is difficult to guess how much the artist is worth, but his creations are estimated to be worth nearly £40m. However, this valuation is based on the sale of his art which he has not condoned, and the profits usually go to the people who owned the site where the art was located.
Some of the profits of Banksy's art may have made its way back to him, but no one knows for sure. Although never revealed publicly, Banksy fans have identified Joy Millward, who runs a lobby group that campaigns on behalf of charities, as a potential candidate for his wife. She is married to Robin Gunningham, who has several times been named as the most likely person to be Banksy.
Millward and Gunningham maintain an extremely private life and very little is known about them. Whether this is a personal choice, or because they are sick of the speculation around supposedly being Banksy and Banksy's wife, or if Gunningham is in fact Banksy, we may never know. Read more ( - from March) ( ) ( ).
