Word: artists
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Banksy lurks in the shadows, outside the klieg lights of the celebrity he's generated. He shrinks from cameras like a vampire from the sun. The graffiti artist, whose work has fetched millions of dollars at auction houses from the likes of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, has never been publicly identified...
...this week, Banksy may have been unmasked. A camera-phone photograph of a man painting on the side of a building in Bethnal Green, East London could be the first image of the guerrilla artist. The photo shows a man appearing to work on a mural of yellow lines that snake down the street, hop a curb and bloom into a flower climbing a wall. In the photo, the man dons blue jeans and sneakers and a dark green jacket. What appears to be a spray-paint mask is perched atop his head. (See pictures of Banksy...
...fans of underground art and more than a few mainstream collectors, snapping Banksy would be like bagging the Loch Ness monster - and there are similar questions as to whether the photo is real. A spokesman for the artist confirmed that the Bethnal Green mural is Banksy's handiwork, but declined to say whether he is the man in the photograph. (See pictures of Banksy's secret art show...
...There's no telling how becoming a public face would affect the artist, whose legend has been burnished by his invisibility. Little is known for certain about Banksy, whose name is reputed to be Robert Banks or Robin Banks. Banksy started painting graffiti in his hometown of Bristol, England, in the 1990s. Since then, his trademark stenciled murals and free-form creations have adorned walls and invaded public spaces across Europe and from San Francisco to Sydney. (Watch TIME's video "Graffiti Meets the Digital...
...meantime, some best-selling Asian artists are content to poke fun at their foreign patrons. Shanghai artist Zhou Tiehai, who has exhibited at the Whitney Museum in New York City and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, gained international attention in the 1990s with his playful renditions of cigarette icon Joe Camel dressed as the Mona Lisa and other Western art figures. At the 1999 Venice Biennale, he exhibited fake magazine covers adorned with his face - a cheeky commentary on the overseas fame so many Asian artists crave. Now he produces soft-focus landscapes and chinoiserie portraits. Yet even though...