good public speaker I’ve kind of spent
most of my career and most of my life
hiding behind some kind of like
masquerade
my name is not Ben iron my name’s Ben
whatever so I’ve always been like hidden
behind this thing so for me to stand up
in front of you guys now and go during
his talk was a little bit weird so we’re
gonna talk about graffiti vandalism
turning into fine art so I was full team
and I was down the Kings Road I went in
WH Smurfs and I saw this book and it’s
called subway AR and it was the first
thing I ever stolen in my life it was a
book on by these two people mark Cooper
and Henry tale front and this book
literally became my Bible by literally
worship worship it for years and I
looked at these paintings of trains in
New York and I was like I’m going to do
that I kind of dedicated the next 20
years of my life to doing that I got
arrested loads and tagged the hell out
of London destroyed London Underground
destroyed British Rail trains painted
every Beastie Boy album named as a
top-to-bottom whole car on British Rail
carriages I was like a little kid yeah
but the one thing I did have was an
unbelievable Drive and an unbelievable
passion for this thing that I couldn’t
really understand when I got into
graffiti I saw this book I kind of
looked at this and I was like this is
the most amazing art form in the world
it’s literally gonna change everything
and then 20 years later I was like this
is literally so boring it hasn’t changed
anything everything it promised it was
going to do it hasn’t done and I’ve lost
interest in it and at that time
I’d met this kid called Banksy and his
kid called Shepard Fairey and a few
other people I was like know what you’re
kind of doing graffiti but seems a
little bit more intelligent it was at
the same time that I’ve been arrested so
many times that the next time I got
arrested they were going to send me to
prison so I was looking for a way that I
could continue doing illegal graffiti
arts whatever but not get arrested and I
saw street art as a way for me to do
that so a year was but that’s when I
first started painting these big random
letters on shutters and I kind of had a
graffiti mentality and so I think I did
like 60 shutters in like the course
about three months all over East London
and I didn’t tag them I didn’t want my
name on them like nobody knew that was
me that’s doing it nobody knew that what
it was like half of them were illegal
some of them are commissioned I paid for
everything and over the course of like I
know two or three months 60 random weird
letters really nicely painted appeared
on like shop shutters all over East
London everyone was like where’s this
and it kind of got people talking I was
like this is way more interesting than
graffiti no one cares about graffiti
graffiti is about graffiti for graffiti
writers to annoy graffiti wires but this
is like you know by doing this I’m
actually kind of connecting with people
I’m I’m kind of making like crappy
neighborhoods and crappy streets look
better so all of a sudden I went from
being one of the most destructive
horrible graffiti writers in London to
now I’m actually making neighborhoods
look better and that that was kind of
like a turning point for me I was like
oh I don’t want to destroy things
you know you know I’m an artist I have a
talent I have a scale
and I have a passion and that’s like one
of the most important things so I
started making things nicer rather than
more horrible and yeah like I said I’ve
hooked up these people started working
Banksy me and Banksy war on mountain
bikes we had some studios together and
we’d run around with like stencils and
do like little rats here and do that and
slowly kind of like what was graffiti
turned into kind of like like some kind
of like happy graffiti or non-aggressive
confiteor non-destructive graffiti and
yeah it slowly turned into this kind of
art movement that is now kind of street
art we would run around London and like
paint stuff and stick up stencils and
there wasn’t a forum it’s a sale or kind
of promote what we were doing like there
wasn’t one gallery in London or the weld
that would touch what we were doing so
we kind of did it ourselves
and it’s like I’ve always been inspired
and motivated by like Vivienne Westwood
the punk movement is like why wait for
somebody to come along and go we love
you
do-it-yourself literally the whole DIY
movement so you know the punk movement
and I think street art did that so well
you know we started our own galleries we
started our own screen printing company
called pigeon walls like I’d never
screen printing in my life kind of did
another job I’m like oh we want to
screen print stuff I was like I was
going things and I’d never sprinkling of
anything in my life and I did like all
the banks he staff Jamie who they’re
Stanley Donwood
and yet we turned it into a little
industry because if we didn’t do it
nobody else was going to do it
after that like galleries kind of got
interested you know gallery saw the
opportunity to make money out of what we
do and yeah now there’s like you know
I’m in like the VNA Museum like la MOCA
SF MOCA
so yeah I don’t know it’s been a very
strange kind of I never imagined that I
would have a painting in the White House
I never imagined that – my graffiti
friends would be one nominated and won
won an Oscar and like none of us went to
art school we were all like kids that
had like a passion to do sank I went to
parylene a little while ago and you know
I kind of love CR and most of my friends
do it and I think a lot of my friends
are amazing talented but you go to a
place like Berlin and it’s just like
this is literally visual pollution
there’s so much rubbish I would make if
I could I would make it I would take
away walls that people are allowed to
paint I would make it harder for you to
get spray paint
I would impose more draconian rules on
policing and that would filter out the
people that actually wanted to do it or
had to do it and the people that did it
it’s like friends have might have been
to prison so many times for graffiti
right I grew up doing graffiti painting
trains and much they have to edit this
out I jumped over a fence the other
nights and painted the try and I’m like
oh what am i doing that’s like I’m
friends of mine painted trains been to
prison and still paint trains I like
that like whether you’d like it whether
you hate it whether it’s worth any money
that those actions are like the purest
the purest art ever like Damien Hirst
going change the color of that spots
well if that’s not art well that’s what
people think is up like the drive and
the passion to jump over France risk
going to prison to write your name on
the side of a train but no one’s ever
going to say and everybody hates IVA
it’s over that’s pure art or you’re an
idiot anyway thank you so much my name’s
Ben [Applause]