Seven Years with Banksy (3 page)

One of our first excursions was to a nearby Irish bar to watch an English football international. It is always a laugh to congregate with English compatriots in a strange town with the common
bond being the English national side. It’s an instant hit as you walk in. English energy, the looks, the clothes, the chants and singing, the beer-swilling, the nervous looks from the locals
(even in New York). Through that Robin and I became more relaxed and I began to figure him out. He was still aloof and distanced but I got the feeling that despite his endeavours to not reveal
himself, he was deep.

This unfathomed depth is important because this was a formative period leading up to his prominence as the artist he is today. He was young, he was inspired by
New York and
although he had a lot of ‘suss’ and knowledge already, he was beginning to find his feet, sort out his own perception of things, and fine-hone that vision, for nobody else’s sake
but his own. He was out there doing the deed in the dead of night in volatile, dangerous places, not in search of accolades but because he wanted to get his views out there. To capture
people’s imagination was the only reward.

The point is it’s all about thinking for yourself – because the powers that be try to think for you from cradle to grave. And that’s why Banksy is so good. He truly thinks for
himself. And he doesn’t just think for himself, he puts it out there for all to see, to reject, to agree with, be provoked by, enlightened by – all of that stuff.

There was a Jewish mayor of New York back in the ’80s - Mayor Koch – who once said ‘If you’ve been here for six months but you’re moving faster, talking faster,
then you’re a New Yorker.’ And I hold with that.
The place can do something to you, animate you, make you more up on your feet, more up on your wits. Several people
have asked me, ‘Why do they call New York the Big Apple?’ I’m not sure of its origins as a phrase but, to me, it means that everybody can take a bite. It’s big enough for
all comers to savour its flavour. Just go ahead and take your bite and enjoy it. The City laid itself out in all its expectant glory – a myriad of spaces and places to check out, scenes to
get involved in. And nobody minded too much about you. They just got on with their own thing and when you connected with like-minded people it was a double-plus good.

I was seeing Johanna a lot and there were a ton of parties about, often in Williamsburg. Robin and I began to go out together some more. We’d walk some of the city
streets and the spectacle of the town worked its magic. One afternoon we strolled down Broadway to a gallery around Soho, close
to Canal Street. We had both heard of the artist
previously but the name escapes me now. This was a street graffiti artist who had a formidable reputation and had now begun to show some big pieces on canvas in galleries. I can still see the work
in my mind’s eye and we were both impressed and pleased to see the exhibition, to take in its visual manipulation.

The canvasses were as big as your average door and the movement of form or letters burst out and rushed back into the art. The hues of blues and colour were so subtle and harmonious they
reflected a mind-state that was one: tough and two: sublime. This was good. We spent some time in there while Robin said repeatedly ‘This just does something to my head.’

He liked it a lot. He was hardly a stranger to graffiti and could easily do his own pieces but this was advanced and you got the sense that he knew he couldn’t compete with the standard,
maybe ever. He did say later
he didn’t think his graffiti pieces were that good, in the traditional sense. I also think that pointless pursuit of the conventions of the
genre was too conformist an approach for him. He knew his limits and that is when he started thinking out of the box.

He has famously said that he came to stencilling after he saw a stencilled number under a train carriage while concealing himself from pursuing law officers. Its simplicity and cleanliness
appealed to him at the same time, being a direct and quick method that was not as time-consuming as when you put up a big piece. This meant he could hit and run with clinical precision many times
over on one night. He found his own way and took full advantage. He started with one stencil only and then realized he could do huge pieces with many stencils placed together (like his ‘Mona
Lisa with Bazooka’) to achieve maximum impact. In New York, however, I never saw him use or create a stencil. That was going to come later.

We were out one day walking through Soho and I thought of popping by a marketplace where I had worked a little and had some trader-friends who were English and I introduced
Robin to them. We all got on well and were having a laugh but soon Robin was tuning into this younger kid and they both clicked as they figured out quickly enough that they both wrote graffiti.
Robin and this lad were rabbiting on nineteen to the dozen about all the local graffiti artists, the names of whom I’d never heard before. The knowledge was impressive and I was out of my
depth in this context so I just listened and that’s when I realized Robin was way out there in his familiarity with this scene. They were almost like a couple of train-spotters. They spoke in
reverent, excited tones of artists and places to find the best, newest pieces by the most invisible, law-defying street artists in New York.

That was another ‘click’ moment. He was up on stuff and knew details that I had
no inkling of. This scene was his thing; he was becoming embedded in it. His
artistic persona was getting more solid. He was the proverbial iceberg: you see a little above the water but underneath is the hidden mass. He didn’t show what was concealed and it’s
pretty much the same to this day. He’s only going to talk through his art.

We would quite often walk out from the hotel together after my shift was done. This was usually around 11 a.m. when the Manhattan mornings were often bright and felt full of endless
possibilities. This particular morning, we were both riding skateboards and I suggested we move on downtown to the lower echelons of Soho to take in an exhibition showing the anarchist propaganda,
art and posters from the Spanish Civil War. It was something I was interested in, having read various accounts of the anarchist International Brigades fighting the allied fascist forces of Franco,
Mussolini and Hitler at the same time as
the Soviet-backed communists. There were many westerners in the anarchist brigade, not least British and Americans who gave their all
for the cause. I was mentioning these facts to Robin as we skated on down. He seemed interested but remained quite silent.

It’s a complex and often overlooked part of history and I thought it would be enlightening.

We got to the gallery relatively early, it had just opened and there was no one inside apart from the proprietor. As we strolled in he looked up, slightly disdainfully, as we propped our
skateboards up against the gallery wall. This guy couldn’t have had his coffee yet because he immediately took off on a tirade about how ‘we shouldn’t have done that’. It
was so out of proportion and snotty that I railed down on him. Pointing out how small-minded he was being – especially in contrast to the noble theme of the exhibition around us. It became a
stand-off and I saw it through but Robin stayed quiet and hung back as it was clearly becoming embarrassing. Eventually and predictably the proprietor said, ‘get out of
here before I call the cops’.

It was a stupid event, but to me the gallery owner’s hysteria was beyond a joke. Robin wasn’t happy about this scene and I couldn’t really make him see it my way: that this man
was childishly reactionary about a couple of skateboards when he was hosting a serious revolutionary art exhibition. To me the irony was obvious and absurd but it created a cold space between Robin
and me and he took off soon after, leaving me feeling nonplussed by his reaction. But there you go; I wasn’t about to turn it into a big deal. To me he was just another snooty Soho gallery
owner.

While in the gallery, though, I had seen a notice that said there was to be a gathering of ex-combatants from the American branch of the International Brigades that night,
including speeches from some of them, so despite the upset I resolved to return. This meeting meant something to me and an uptight fool wasn’t going to put me off.

So that night I dressed differently, put on a ‘poor-boy cap’ and got myself down to the event. And it was truly worth it to see these brave men and women stand up and tell their
stories: how the US military rejected them for their effort and even how, on their return to America, the unions would not let them be hired simply because of their political beliefs.

They all stood at the end of the evening and sang ‘the Internationale’ and they were still strong and proud and righteous and it struck me hard in the heart. As I left, I passed the
gallery owner once again and checked his gaze as he did a double take.

I didn’t run into Robin again for several days and neither did I seek him out, but, of course, we were bound to see each other and I was determined to bring up this incident.

The next time I saw him I was in the hotel office on a fine afternoon fixing up a shitake mushroom salad. He came in with Mike Tyler, the resident poet and writer who was
staying in the hotel – and was forever stalling on his rent. Mike was one of the founders of the ‘Slam Poetry’ events in New York that later evolved into a worldwide scene. He was
an interesting guy and also never had a dime. So I asked them in to eat and they were pleased to join me. I always made a little more food than necessary and often invited others to eat with me. It
made for a pleasant intro to the night shift. And we got to talking.

I already knew that Robin was naturally taciturn and since the gallery episode he had retreated a step back from our friendship. So, fuck it, I just gave him a broadside and told him how I had
gone down there again that same day to pay some respect to the old warriors. I told him about their clenched fist salute, how the establishment back in
the States had
blackballed them, ostracizing them and their families. He started to see things differently and silently acknowledged where I was coming from. I didn’t know if he had any politics. His art at
this point did not reflect that but to me it was obvious he was smart, streetwise and a guttersnipe. And the truth is only known by guttersnipes. So I thought, ‘hey – we’re either
going to connect or not’. So I laid it out and our relationship was better for it.

Life in New York moved at its own rapid pace, and Robin and I continued to hang out. I took him over to Williamsburg one time for a brunch being prepared by a crowd of the artists that I lived
with. I remember he was pretty quiet, as usual, but I could start to read him by then and I could tell he was intrigued. His style was to be quiet, to observe, to take it all in – and then he
would come out with just one comment at the precise time to garner some attention. And that is what he did on this occasion, successfully
pissing off half of my mates with
deceptive ease. Usually his perceptive comments were so close to the target they got most people’s backs up within microseconds; others would laugh; others would be puzzled. But when he spoke
all would listen. I’ve seen him do this ‘cat among the pigeons’ routine several times and it has this canny effect every time. He could smell bullshit a mile off and he could cut
fiercely through the pretensions of a crowd. It was just quick, short and precise. And almost every time there was this humour – the same humour you see in his art, especially the
stencils.

He was never great for conversation. He didn’t do that, he didn’t reveal or divulge often but they say that only about 30 per cent of human communication is actually spoken or
verbal. But people who talk too much have always bugged me; you’ve got to get your psychic awareness out, feel the other person. With Robin it was always just good to be around him. You felt
like you
were with an intelligent, deep animal but you wouldn’t think of crossing him. His razor blades were just too sharp. I got an idea of his background and there
wasn’t a sniff of privilege about him. His wit and sensibility came from hard knocks, you could tell. He comes from nowhere and he could go right back there in a second and not be
perturbed.

In hindsight, I was very glad to have him in my life back then. He was a complete antidote to the superficial entities that inhabit New York in large numbers. I’m not going to say we were
kindred spirits or anything like that but we didn’t stop hanging out. Our friendship was ongoing.

He had an edge, as I mentioned, but he didn’t have any particular politics or dogma. He just saw things clearly. He wasn’t really influenced too much by anything but I could feel his
keen sense of injustice and hypocrisy.

I was starting to make plans to leave town and head off for South America. I’d been saving money and even had enough
to buy a second-hand Harley Davidson and ship it
back to England. My first idea had been to ride across to California to hook up with some good people I knew. However Johanna put paid to that idea as we were in love and she became my priority.
Her stay was also coming to an end and I was determined to get over to Sweden as soon as my South American trip was over. Also I wasn’t getting on too well at the hotel with certain members
of staff, one of which was working on getting me out of the place, saying that I was too rude, which still makes me laugh when I think of it.

There was a buzz in the hotel office a couple of mornings running, more so than usual. The place was usually humming by around 10 a.m. Old Charlie Berg, the war-veteran, would be ordering his
breakfast from the corner restaurant over the phone ‘and make the eggs over easy, dammit...’ while a fusty smell reeked off him, guests coming and going, money to collect, questions,
complaints, and more questions. Robin would poke his head in, slightly bemused by the goings-on and to see me fencing off all the usual rigours of the job. ‘Hey, they call
it work!’ I might say to an enquiring gaze.

But this morning the buzz was: Damien Hirst was coming through town – and how the hell were we going to blag our way into the opening night? These were relatively early days for Hirst in
New York and this was to be his breakthrough show. He is quite entertaining, but to be honest I couldn’t really take him that seriously. Nevertheless, I was into checking out the opening
night. Whatever else he does Hirst has a skill in the art of extracting largesse out of corporations that have too much money to burn.