Banksy: A guerilla in our midst

Dismissed as a vandal and a prankster, the mysterious graffiti artist Banksy sneaked his works into the world's greatest galleries. Now he's targeted Israel's separation wall. Louise Jury pursues a man on a mission
Published: 06 August 2005
His critics may have long dismissed him as an irresponsible prankster, scarcely one step up from school dropouts carving slogans on park benches. But the British graffiti artist Banksy, who earlier this year planted a hoax rock painting in the British Museum depicting a spear-wielding caveman pushing a supermarket trolley, may finally convince the doubters that he, and his imposing stencilled images, are more than just a joke.

This week he risked the bullets of the Israeli security services to stencil nine paintings on to the Palestinian side of Israel's separation wall. They included pictures of children digging a hole, breaking through the wall, and another of a ladder apparently going up the wall and over to the other side. For an artist who built his reputation by spraying large images, among them policemen with smiley faces and masked rioters lobbing bunches of flowers, it is arguably his most political statement to date.

This article and the photo are not my work. The photo was from the www.Haaretz.com website and the article is from www.independent.co.uk

Banksy: A guerilla in our midst
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