Anyone paying attention to news from the world of art, or for that matter, anyone seeking to avoid news of our nation’s reckless and self-destructive adventures on the world’s stage, may have heard about the revelation that Banksy, surely the most popular artist of our time, is primarily the creation of Robin Gunningham, a fifty-some-year-old Briton who has been mentioned as a suspect over the years. Many of us first heard of Banksy around the turn of the millennium, when he was frequently discussed among the more aware arts faculties, even in Utah, where his takedowns of pretentious institutions, his brilliant innovations, generally good humor, and ultimately serious, humanitarian subject matter made him a hero. In those years, his identity was an open secret among artists and audiences that were attentive to street art, which included spray paint on stencils, adhesive labels, and Banksy’s speciality: sneaking into art museums, Disneyland, or any other high-security location and adding a work of his own to their collection, then standing back to see how long it took for his addition to be discovered.

I taught Art History at Snow College for six years, give or take, beginning in 2002—which put me in the perfect position to add Banksy to the curriculum Snow’s estimable art community introduced to its students. By 2010, we had parted ways. In April of that year, I smuggled a Banksy-like work of art into the annual student final show. Made of aluminum foil, it employed the facial features of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 20th-century America’s greatest president, and was titled “Irrepressible” in tribute to the man’s continuing influence in this country’s affairs. Of course it also referred to Banksy’s own resilience as a social force wherever in the world a good image was welcome. In further tribute to Banksy’s style of gluing his impertinent works to museum walls, I attached “Irrepressible” to Snow’s gallery walls with transparent tape.

Alert viewers will note that while durable, aluminum is easily bent or even crushed, and so the lesson of the work was cautionary. They may also notice that the name of the artist I put on my work was Robin Gunningham. Yes, within the art world there were those who knew Banksy’s identify as early as sixteen years ago, and were determined to keep his secret, though not above teasing the truth. It’s been a great run, and if the dominant forces in society always insist on spoiling any fun that doesn’t include them, maybe all we can do is remember the end of the film Spartacus, where each of the captured slaves stands up and declares, “I am Spartacus.”

So if I am Banksy, who are you?

Geoff Wichert

Geoff Wichert objects to the term critic. He would rather be thought of as a advocate on behalf of those he writes about.