“This is not a manual”: Banksy hits bookstores with a manifesto against advertising

“ Graffiti is the most honest form of art there is . You don't need money to do it, or education to understand it. There's no admission fee . And painting on a bus stop can be more useful than painting in a museum,” writes Banksy in one of the first pages of This Is Not a Resource Manual for the Fucking Advertising Agencies , a book recently published in Argentina by La Marca Editora.

This isn't exactly a book "by" Banksy, the anonymous British street artist , but rather a visual and textual compendium of his thoughts, statements, and works . It's like a sort of manifesto in fragments. For the first time in Spanish, the publication brings together the scattered texts of the elusive hero , written in a haphazard and often anonymous manner, "which entails for any editor the risk of falling into false attribution," the editors clarify in the prologue.

The volume, accompanied by images of his most famous graffiti and phrases, is organized into three sections: "Outside World" (his interventions in public spaces), "Inner World" (pieces created in museums or galleries), and "Dear Banksy," a selection of love and hate letters written by fans and detractors, with responses from the artist, where available.

Throughout these pages, Banksy explains how to make a stencil, suggests imagining a city without restrictions, tells anecdotes about painting at night in secret and, above all, mocks advertising agencies : “The ones who really ruin our neighborhoods are the companies that plaster buildings and buses with huge slogans trying to make us feel uncomfortable if we don't buy their merchandise.”

His images are almost always accompanied by sarcasm or a great sense of humor. He has painted images of two English police officers kissing, a hotel employee sweeping trash beneath a brick wall, the protagonists of Pulp Fiction wielding bananas instead of firearms, or a parliament full of chimpanzees instead of MPs.

Banksy's work has the ability to synthesize the great conflicts of the present : immigration, consumerism, constant surveillance, the environmental crisis, and police repression. "Sorry, the lifestyle you ordered is currently out of stock," reads one of his famous graffiti, compiled here.

But reducing Banksy to a writer of sharp phrases would be naive. Beyond his corrosive humor and incendiary rhetoric, he has become a global cultural symbol, so much so that The Times magazine named him, in one of its annual rankings, among the 100 most influential people on the planet.

He was even nominated for an Oscar in 2010 for his documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop , a chronicle of the underground world of street art, although he was unable to attend the awards ceremony as the organizers prohibited him from covering his face or wearing a costume.

Who is Banksy? is a question that is recycled every few months in different media outlets around the world, with various theories, but the answer seems irrelevant to its subject. Because the enigma is part of his artistic operation : shifting the focus from the biography to the message.

Born in 1973 in England, suspected to be in Bristol, he began his career in the 1990s, among skaters and raves. His preferred technique, stenciling, allows him to work quickly , preparing the templates in his studio and leaving his mark on a street wall in seconds. The ideal procedure for an illegal—and urgent—art employed by someone who must disappear before the police arrive.

“ Graffiti artists aren't criminals . I'm constantly reminded of this by real criminals, who consider breaking into a place, not stealing anything, and leaving a picture with your name on it the stupidest thing they've ever heard,” he jokes in the book.

In Banksy's visual universe, there are armed police officers with happy emoji faces, children hugging bombs, revolutionary rats, and protesters throwing flowers as if they were homemade bombs. Ronald McDonald, napalm, and Mickey Mouse coexist in his images. His texts feature phrases like: "The greatest crimes in the world are committed not by those who break the rules, but by those who follow them." In the book, for example, he recounts how he painted rats nonstop for three years until someone pointed out that "rat" is an anagram of art. "I had to pretend I already knew that," he confesses.

But it's not all sarcasm. "Girl with Balloon," probably her most popular image, first appeared in 2002, under Waterloo Bridge in London. In the scene, a little girl releases a heart-shaped balloon. It's Britain's favorite work of art , voted number one in the UK according to a poll.

In 2018, a framed copy of that same work sold at Sotheby's for over a million dollars . As soon as the hammer fell, the work began to slide down the frame, activating a hidden shredder that destroyed it on live television. Banksy renamed the piece "Love is in the Bin," and the news spread around the world. Some spoke of sabotage; others, of extreme marketing. The auction house celebrated: "He didn't destroy one work, he created another." Three years later, the buyer of that work resold it for a staggering $23.7 million (€21.5 million), almost twenty times its original price. It is, to date, Banksy's most expensive work.

Throughout his career, the artist has taken his interventions to unexpected settings . In 2015, he built Dismaland, a gloomy parody of Disneyland, in the coastal town of Weston-super-Mare. The castle was in ruins. Cinderella lay dead after a carriage accident. Visitors queued for hours to see depressing rides. The slogan: "Welcome to Dismaland, the theme park not suitable for happy children." The project lasted five weeks, attracted more than 150,000 visitors , and once again demonstrated that the artist can generate media and artistic impact without revealing his face.

In the Bethlehem neighborhood of Palestine, he opened a hotel facing the concrete wall that separates it from Israel. He promoted it with the slogan: "The worst views in the world." On its facade, he plastered nine iconic images, including "Love is in the air," a hooded young man throwing a bouquet of flowers like a Molotov cocktail.

Each new Banksy mural becomes a media phenomenon , both for its content and for the speculation it sparks. Despite his anonymity, he has managed to influence the art world like few other contemporaries.

With an unmistakable aesthetic that transcends borders, Banksy embraced contradiction as part of his fundamental language . He fiercely criticizes capitalism, yet sells works by the millions. He despises brands, but his name became one of them. He posts phrases like "I can't believe you idiots actually buy this shit" and then releases a limited edition of prints with that title.

From his official website—mockingly dubbed Pest Control Office— he wryly responds to those who believe they've discovered "who Banksy really is ," according to the FAQ: "Great. Banksy greatly appreciates any feedback and is currently wrestling with that very question. Please write 'existential crisis' in the subject line."

Certificates of authenticity are also issued there for his small-format works: silkscreens, canvases, sculptures. The only thing he can't authenticate, paradoxically, are his own murals.

This is not a resource manual for fucking advertising agencies , by Banksy (La Marca Editora).