Banksy Art Quotes & Sayings

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

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. — Banksy

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. — Banksy

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

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. — Banksy

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. — Banksy

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. — Banksy

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

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. — Banksy

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. — Banksy

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

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

The bad artists imitate, the great artists steal, — Banksy

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. — Banksy

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. — Banksy

Obviously my own work comes from a conceptual art tradition, but I love the graffiti artists, and I feel spiritually closer to them than to most contemporary art; they make the city a free space of diverse voices and we shouldn't get all cynical about them just because Banksy made some money. I collaborate sometimes with Krae, who is an old school east London graffiti writer. — Robert Montgomery

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. — Banksy

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

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. — Banksy

I'd much rather go to a Banksy art show than a Moby art show. My art is painfully naive. — Moby

Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. — Banksy

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. — Banksy

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? — Banksy

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

At this time of year it's easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity - the lies, the corruption, the abuse. — Banksy

People say graffiti is ugly, irresponsible and childish ... but that's only if it's done properly. — Banksy

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

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. — Banksy

The art world is the biggest joke going. It's a rest home for the overprivileged, the pretentious, and the weak. — Banksy

I want to live in a world created by art, not just decorated with it — Banksy