How does Banksy avoid getting caught in the act?
Banksy himself probably doesnt actually execute any public works. If these are conceived of centrally, the designs are shopped out to teams of assistants who either live in or travel to various locations around the world, and it is these assistants who execute the work that shows up on walls. The works youre thinking of are not murals but mainly stencils within human proportions, which can be done very rapidly: if the assistants work in teams of two, one person quickly prepares the surface of the wall, the other person holds the stencil against the wall, and then the first one quickly spray paints it. Most of Banksys public works are two- or three-color stencil throw-ups, and a well-trained team working with the efficiency of a pit crew could have them up on a wall in a matter of seconds. Murals, by contrast, are extremely large and tend to be hand-painted over days or weeks by teams of artists who have been asked by an organization or building owner to create them. Sometimes the artists are even compensated! The organizations of assistants associated with Banksy, and even some of their imitators, have a bit of a legal cushion knowing that there is a good chance the owners of the buildings on which the artwork appears will recognize its monetary value and not seek legal action, or even work to protect the artwork. (Inevitably, we can count on some Banksy artworks actually being commissioned and all legal pathways followed to the letter while maintaining the appearance of illicit graffiti so that Banksy gets to maintain their street cred.) Typically, building owners would sooner just paint over unwanted graffiti than attempt to go after the writers/artists, because it is a better use of their time and police activity tends to not produce results. The fact is that catching and punishing perpetrators charged with vandalism does nothing whatsoever to deter vandalism. All this, of course, only takes into account the portion of Banksy artwork that shows up in the form of street art or public artwork and performances. For some time now, the organization has been gaining strength by selling works to dealers and at auction houses, often in conjunction with media stunts and in one case, a now-famous scripted documentary. Im unsure of what channels are used to conceal the identity of Banksy but its safe to assume that within the organization the moniker is actually now decentralized: no one person is Banksy, its probably more like a board of directors or a writers room. Originally answered: How does Banksy not get seen when doing murals? I mean these would take a long time. Does he get police or city approval? Thank you, Cath Hainesson, for the compliment of the A2A.