I know street art can feel increasingly like the marketing wing of an art career, so I wanted to make some art without the price tag attached. There’s no gallery show or book or film. It’s pointless. Which hopefully means something.
BANKSYIs graffiti art or vandalism? That word has a lot of negative connotations and it alienates people, so no, I don’t like to use the word ‘art’ at all.
More Banksy Quotes
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Some people represent authority without ever possessing any of their own.
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Anyone who believes in capital punishment should be shot
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Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world I can’t even finish my second apple pie.
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A lot of mothers will do anything for their children, except let them be themselves.
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If you don’t own a train company then you go and paint on one instead… it all comes from that thing at school when you had to have name tags in the back of something… that makes it belong to you. You can own half the city by scribbling your name over it.
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Live as a villain, die as a hero
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I don’t think you should have to pay to look at graffiti. You should only pay if you want to get rid of it.
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I don’t believe in anything. I’m just here for the violence.
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I know street art can feel increasingly like the marketing wing of an art career, so I wanted to make some art without the price tag attached. There’s no gallery show or book or film. It’s pointless. Which hopefully means something.
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If you feel dirty, insignificant or unloved, then rats are a good role model. They exist without permission, they have no respect for the hierarchy of society, and they have sex 50 times a day.
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Nothing is black and white, and there is no purity and there is no such thing has justice.
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I don’t know why people are so keen to put the details of their private life in public; they forget that invisibility is a superpower.
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Nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent, leave the house before you find something worth staying in for.
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I need someone to protect me from all the measures they take in order to protect me.
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Fight the fighters, not their wars.
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Today’s art has been cancelled due to police activity.
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Speak softly, but carry a big can of paint.
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Brandalism Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It belongs to you. It’s yours to take, rearrange and re-use. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
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Bus stops are far more interesting and useful places to have art than in museums.
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People are fond of using military terms to describe what they do. We call it bombing when we go out painting, when of course it’s more like entertaining the troops in a neutral zone, during peacetime in a country without an army.
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You can win the rat race but you’re still a rat.
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It’s impossible to predict which paintings will last and which won’t. In New Orleans I painted on a dilapidated shop in a street littered with abandoned cars and rotting mattresses, then two hours later the piece was gone. It turned out I’d picked the side of a crack house and the proprietor didn’t like the attention.
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Film is incredibly democratic and accessible, it’s probably the best option if you actually want to change the world, not just re-decorate it.
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We can’t do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime we should all go shopping to console ourselves.
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Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.
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If it doesn’t matter, get rid of it. If you can’t get rid of it, it matters.
BANKSY