We all have that friend — the Sheldon Cooper to Big Bang Theory’s Howard Wolowitz — who, once shown a magic trick, cannot rest until they have explained to everybody and then some exactly how the rabbit got into the hat. The magician, of course, is appalled, and the spectators, wanting to preserve the wonder, unsuccessfully try to drown out the voice by stuffing their fingers in their ears and humming lalala. This is how I spent the last week, since Banksy — the art world’s most interesting ghost — was unveiled.

Apparently, Banksy, aka Robin Gunningham, made the rookie mistake of letting his ex-manager leave a trail of breadcrumbs post his exit, which led reporters straight to a handwritten confession, a border crossing, and the deeply unromantic discovery that his legal name is now David Jones, if the Reuters investigation is to be believed. Banksy himself has yet to refute or confirm the disclosure.

So, here I am, cycling through stages of what I can only describe as a very bourgeois grief. While I do not know the man who is Banksy, I was rather in love with the idea of a phantom revolutionary, stencilling politically subversive art onto the walls of London, Gaza, and Ukraine in the dead of night, leaving behind nothing but a provocation and his signature.

The ghost could neither be compromised nor could he be photographed leaving a dinner party with the wrong people. It was unlikely to put its foot in its mouth in an ill-timed, poorly worded tweet or feature in a middling documentary. Banksy’s anonymity protected his audience as much as it protected the artist. We were spared the man and his foibles and........

© Indian Express