Seen Report: why does the media love Banksy?

The media has a special name for the late summer. In Britain we call it Silly Season, in the US you might know it better as Slow News Season. It’s hot, and everyone’s on holiday and there’s simply not much to write about. So, outlets focus on the weird and wacky stories that they’d usually turn down at any other time of the year.

This season, the job of generating headlines fell to Banksy, the Bristolian graffiti artist who broke the bounds of small-town fame to become a global name. Over nine days, Banksy dominated the news cycle with a menagerie of graffiti animals around London: first an ibex in Richmond, then two elephants in Chelsea, three monkeys on Brick Lane, a wolf in Peckham, pelicans in Walthamstow… After the first two days, events soon settled into a rhythm: overnight a new artwork would be painted, in the early morning sightings would be made and articles published, by the afternoon the work would be authenticated by Banky’s personal licencing company Pest Control and posted on his Instagram, that evening a new round of articles would confirm the news (plus bonus articles if the artwork was stolen or damaged), and the day would end with people asking what next, where, and why?

Banksy didn’t offer a clear answer. So, everyone did what everyone does these days and fell back onto speculation, rumour and conspiracy theories to explain the intention and significance of the works. The headlines said it all: Banksy’s new urban jungle sparks hunt for hidden meaning; After three days of unusual animal paintings appearing around London what message is Banksy trying to deliver?; Speculation rife about Banksy’s London murals after five appear in a week.”

Something, either the heat or the paint fumes, got to people’s heads. Some of the theories were wild. Hyperallergic asked “Could Banksy’s New Goat Mural in London Be a Palestine Symbol?” cribbing comments from Banksy’s Instagram posts claiming that the ‘threatened or endangered’ animals could be coded messages about Palestine. The ‘elephant in the room’ could be a reference to the death toll in Gaza, perhaps? This theory soon fell apart when Banksy next revealed some un-endangered monkeys. The Art Newspaper published an article, “Banksy’s London zoo: goat, monkey, wolf and elephant silhouettes fox the nation”, noting “the isolated goat, left to struggle, could also refer to the ‘scapegoating’ of immigrants.” Again, wrong. Ladbible approached art experts at MyArtBroker and discovered a secret, sinister meaning connected to a floating ark and the End of Days.

It wasn’t just the poor quality of coverage, the sheer quantity was overwhelming. Artnews managed to spin out ten articles on the series; one for each artwork, plus a bonus article ranking them all. Not to be outdone, the Daily Mail published 18 articles connected to the series. Other outlets decided to raid their archives for old Banksy content. ITV managed to dig up some fairly convincing footage from the only known TV interview with someone claiming to be Banksy at the 2003 opening of Banksy’s first major exhibition, ‘Turf War’.

The coverage seemed completely overblown given the low quality of the art. Take another look at it. The first two, the ibex and the elephants, are so bad that for a while I refused to believe they were by Banksy. The simple silhouette compositions lacked the creativity of his better known works, for example, the kissing policemen, the handling of the spray can and stencil looked pretty sloppy and while the locations chosen for the artworks were unusual, they weren’t particularly ambitious. I was only truly convinced when I saw the rhino and piranha works.

On the seventh day, the ‘real reason’ behind the spree was revealed. A representative of Pest Control told The Observer that the idea was to “cheer people with a moment of unexpected amusement, as well as to gently underline the human capacity for creative play, rather than for destruction and negativity.”

Banksy was simply… having a laugh. Sometimes an elephant is just an elephant.

The problem is, I don’t buy that. My personal conspiracy theory is that Banksy did this because his market is in the dumps and these paintings were an easy, cheap, safe way to get his name back in the news. Banksy is, after all, a businessman. Take a step back and look at what he achieved; he dominated the international news cycle for over a week with nine artworks painted in a few hours. Is there any other artist in Britain who could do that? Is there any other artist on earth who could?

Banksy has learned how to play the media in a way that few other artists have. He understands his role in generating content, outrage and speculation. This has helped him last longer than I, or perhaps anyone, ever expected. He made his name around 20 years ago, and every five years or so it seems like he’s played out. But he always manages to pull something out of the bag. Every now and then he pulls a stunt and lets the media play its silly game of pretending not to know who Banksy is; pretending that “Banksy” is still a single masked figure, not a studio of artists and technicians; speculating on the meaning behind artwork, and never actually questioning his commercial practice.

These days, it’s hard to escape conspiratorial thinking. Getting carried away with it can be fun, and it’ll certainly get you clicks. But if you really care about art, or about news, then it pays to take your time and wait and see how things play out.