Banksy
113 quotes
Biography
Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist, and film director. He has never publicly confirmed his identity.
"Graffiti's always been a temporary art form. You make your mark and then they scrub it off."
"Should graffiti be judged on the same level as modern art? Of course not: It's way more important than that."
"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."
"You're mind is working at its best when you're being paranoid.You explore every avenue and possibility of your situationat high speed with total clarity."
"Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"I need someone to protect me from all the measures they take in order to protect me."
"We can't do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves."
"I used to tell everyone I meant to be an artist..... I don't do that any more."
"Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world I can’t even finish my second apple pie."
"People who should be shot: Fascist thugs, religious fundamentalists, people who write lists telling you who should be shot."
"We don’t need any more heroes; we just need someone to take out the recycling."
"Think from outside the box, collapse the box and take a fucking knife to it."
"If you want someone to be ignored, then build a life-size bronze statue of them and stick it in the middle of town..."
"Art is not like other culture because its success is not made by its audience. The public fill concert halls and cinemas everyday, 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."
"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..."
"Become good at cheating and you never need to become good at anything else."
"I got home at last and crawled into bed next to my girlfriend. I told her I'd had an epiphany that night [about using stencils] and she told me to stop taking that drug 'cos it's bad for your heart."
"I sucked a lot of breasts to get where I am today."
"T.V. has made going to the theatre seem pointless, photography has pretty much killed painting but graffiti has remained gloriously unspoilt by progress."
"People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish. But that's only if it's done properly."