This is the age of the individual. The self. Generation me me me me me.  

An age in which each of us is encouraged by a heady mix of technological trends and cultural pressures to think of ourselves as unique and special. To treat ourselves as a brand. 

And in a world with every person/brand competing with everyone else, fame and celebrity is often used as a measure of status. 

It’s as though Banksy saw it coming. When he – and just for the sake of this morning, let’s assume he’s a he – first started making his subversive street art in the 1990s, he decided to make it anonymously.    

I can’t say for sure why he made that decision. Given he was graffitiing public places, I suppose the original decision might have been made for the obvious legal reason – to try and avoid the Police. But as he has grown into one of the biggest artists on the planet, with works selling for tens of millions of dollars, at some point Banksy chose something much greater. In eschewing the fame and individual recognition, he was pulling a middle finger at one of the defining phenomena of the modern age. 

It’s not often you’ll hear me whinging about a piece of investigative journalism, but Reuters published an exhaustive investigation this week, which many believe has proved Banksy’s identity once and for all. And maybe it does. But though it was certainly a huge journalistic effort, on this occasion I just don’t want to know the truth. 

It’s not that I’m not a tiny bit curious. I love his work! It’s probably not very cool to say that now. Banksy’s not exactly subtle, and when it comes to mainstream appeal, he’s probably even giving Ed Sheeran a run for his money. But he’s funny. He’s clever. He’s political. And whether stencilling kissing coppers or a rioter hurling a bunch of flowers instead of a Molotov cocktail, he inverts our world. He’s anarchic. 

Much of Banksy’s work questions authority and oppression. Much of it pokes fun at powerful people and institutions. But among his many works, some of the very best question all of us and what we value. 

When I lived in New York, Banksy set up a little street stall down the road from my apartment and spent a few hours selling his works. Almost everyone assumed they were fakes, and it was only once he published a video revealing the ruse, that thousands of visitors to the Guggenheim Museum realised they’d missed an opportunity to buy artworks worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for less than hundred bucks. In one of those great moments of national pride, a woman from Taranaki realised they were legit and ended up buying two. 

Perhaps an even better-known example of Banksy challenging what we value was his work ‘Love is in the Bin’, the incredible work that having sold for a million pounds at a glitzy Sotheby’s bash, promptly shredded before the audience of stunned auction-goers. 

So who’s the real Banksy? If you really want to know, it doesn’t take much to bring up the Reuters investigation. But unless Banksy’s revealed to be Elvis, Serena Williams, or King Charles himself, I for one would honestly prefer not to know.  

What’s more interesting? A 52-year-old bloke from Bristol, or arguably the best-known living artist on the planet walking among us, unrecognised, unbothered, unharrassed, unphotographed, with a stencil and a spray can in his backpack, looking for his next wall? 

We fetishise celebrity. We idolise fame. Choosing to stay anonymous is maybe Banksy’s greatest work.