He furtively installs his subversive art in museums. He fills London galleries with live rats. He's Brangelina's favorite collecting pastime (after third-world children). He's Banksy, the UK graffiti artist whose charm, or finely crafted hype, has been his closely guarded anonymity. Sort of.
Complicated and ultimately fruitless attempts to hunt him down were launched by Esquire, then, this week, the New Yorker, and eventually Complex magazine's blog (where this pic was just republished). We're reminded that the artist was pictured in a 2004 edition of England's Evening Standard and that the photos were first taken by Jamaican artist Peter Dean Rickards and had been lurking deep within his website, the Afflicted Yard. Apparently, it was a passage in the New Yorker's story from this week that led Complex to rediscover the so-called anonymous artist's mug.
None of this has hurt the Banksy brand, apparently.