Banksy Art Quotations

The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.

I think its pretty clear that film is the pre-eminent art form of our age. If Michaelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci were alive today they’d be making Avatar, not painting a chapel. 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.

I’ve learnt from experience that a painting isn’t finished when you put down your brush - that’s when it starts. The public reaction is what supplies meaning and value. Art comes alive in the arguments you have about it.

I wouldnt want to be remembered as the guy who contaminated a perfectly legitimate form of protest art with money and celebrities.

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.

The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists.. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.

All artists are willing to suffer for their work. But why are so few prepared to learn to draw?

Art is not like other culture because its success is not made by its audience. The public fill concert halls and cinemas every day, we read novels by the millions, and buy records by the billions. 'We the people' affect the making and quality of most of our culture, but not our art

As far as I can tell the only thing worth looking at in most museums of art is all the schoolgirls on daytrips with the art departments.

I'd been painting rats for three years before someone said 'that's clever it's an anagram of art' and I had to pretend I'd known that all along.

Graffiti ultimately wins out over proper art because it becomes part of your city, it' s a tool; "I'll meet you in that pub, you know, the one opposite that wall with a picture of a monkey holding a chainsaw". I mean, how much more useful can a painting be than that?

I used to encourage everyone I knew to make art; I don't do that so much anymore.

There's obviously nothing wrong with selling your art - only an idiot with a trust fund would tell you otherwise. But it's confusing to know how far you should take it.

Although you might have to creep about at night and lie to your mum it’s actually one of the more honest art forms available. There is no elitism or hype, it exhibits on the best walls a town has to offer and nobody is put off by the price of admission.

The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It's people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages.

Imagine a city where graffiti wasn't illegal, a city where everybody could draw whatever they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a party where everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business. Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall - it's wet.

Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing.

Today's art has been cancelled due to police activity.

But there's no way round it-commercial success is a mark of failure for a graffiti artist. We're not supposed to be embraced in that way. When you look at how society rewards so many of the wrong people, it's hard not to view financial reimbursement as a badge of self-serving mediocrity.

Should #‎ graffiti be judged on the same level as modern art? Of course not: It's way more important than that

The bad artists imitate, the great artists steal,

Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.

Graffiti is one of the few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don't come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make someone smile while they're having a piss.

I used to tell everyone I met to be an artist..... I don't do that any more.

My lawyer's opinion is that the cops might not actually be able to charge me with criminal damage any more - because theoretically my graffiti actually increases the value of property rather than decreasing it. That's his theory, but then my lawyer also believes wearing novelty cartoon ties is a good look.

Is 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.

The Art we look at is made by only a select few. A small group create, promote, purchase, exhibit and decide the success of Art. Only a few hundred people in the world have any real say. When you go to an Art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires

Become good at cheating and you never need to become good at anything else.

Nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent, leave the house before you find something worth staying in for.

Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place.

Graffiti's always been a temporary art form. You make your mark and then they scrub it off.

I wouldn't want to be remembered as the guy who contaminated a perfectly legitimate form of protest art with money and celebrities.

Should graffiti be judged on the same level as modern art? Of course not: It's way more important than that.

You're mind is working at its best when you're being paranoid. You explore every avenue and possibility of your situation at high speed with total clarity.

It doesn't take much to be a successful artist-all you need to do is dedicate your entire life to it.

Writing graffiti is about the most honest way you can be an artist. It takes no money to do it, you don't need an education to understand it, and there's no admission fee.

When you go to an art gallery you are simply a tourist looking at the trophy cabinet of a few millionaires.

The art world is the biggest joke going. It's a rest home for the overprivileged, the pretentious, and the weak. And modern art is a disgrace - never have so many people used so much stuff and taken so long to say so little.

Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

Traditional graffiti writers have a bunch of rules they like to stick to, and good luck to them, but I didn't become a graffiti artist so I could have somebody else tell me what to do. If you're the type who gets sentimental about people scribbling over your stuff, I suggest graffiti is probably not the right hobby for you.

I don't know if street art ever really works indoors. If you domesticate an animal, it goes from being wild and free to sterile, fat and sleepy. So maybe the art should stay outside.

I tell myself I use art to promote dissent, but maybe I am just using dissent to promote my art. I plead not guilty to selling out. But I plead it from a bigger house than I used to live in.

A wall is a very big weapon. It's one of the nastiest things you can hit someone with.

I need someone to protect me from all the measures they take in order to protect me.

Bus stops are far more interesting and useful places to have art than in museums. Graffiti has more chance of meaning something or changing stuff than anything indoors. Graffiti has been used to start revolutions, stop wars, and generally is the voice of people who aren't listened to. Graffiti is one of those few tools you have if you have almost nothing. And even if you don't come up with a picture to cure world poverty you can make somebody smile while they're having a piss.