BANKSY VS KING ROBBOCreative Rivalry in Street Art

Many people think the feud between Robbo

and Banksy started in 2009 when Banksy

painted over Robbo’s long standing work

under a British canal in Camden, London. It

actually started in the 1990’s at a place

called the Dragon Bar. Banksy claimed to not

know who Robbo was and Robbo slapped him

saying, “You’ll never forget me.”

Up until Robbo’s work was painted over he

was retired from tagging. After Banksy’s

paint over, Robbo was compelled to come out

of retirement to strike back after the

disrespectful act.

Robbo fixed Banksy defacing by retagging his name.

Banksy retaliated by adding FUC in front of it.

Robbo subtlety fixed the retribution.

From there it was painted black and Robbo attacked Banksy’s career

But even with this, the feud kept going.

Banksy painted over it and decorated an interesting living room piece involving fish.

Each artist didn’t wanted to be bested by the other,

the rivalry drove them to continually keep producing

more art to answer for what the other had done.

The fact that the two artists had conflicting styles

furthered the rivalry and art.

They did however have similar backgrounds, They

are both pseudonymous graffiti artists that's did

much of their work underground. Both have very

private lives, keeping birth location and birthdate

unknown. 

Robbo was a graffiti artist and did all of his

work freehand, while Bansky was a street

artists and utilized stencils to complete his

pieces. Robbo saw Bansky’s use of stencils

as a lack of skill and his covering of Robbo’s

pieces as a lack of artistic integrity.

The rivalry grew to include many other

people, Team Robbo and fans of Banksy.

Those in support of Robbo defaced works of

Banksy. The rivalry definitely drove each

artist and their followers to produce more art

and it fueled creativity.

The collaboration of their work, even through it is insulting to one another,

brings a new look to their art. With stencil, being more realistic and

freehand giving an old graffiti style with blurred lines and bright colors,

the mashup pieces are appealing to all street art lovers.

The feud gave Robbo a chance to try different forms of tagging, mainly

street art and stencil. He even planned to host an art gallery.

If we take the time to stop looking at the insults, we can see the true

creativity both Robbo and Banksy had when working with each other and

how Robbo grew as an artist, not just a tagger.

In April 2011 Robbo went into a coma

after suffering a head injury. Banksy

created a Robbo tribute in the place of

the original landmark that started the

feud.

Robbo died July 31 2014. King Robbo

kept his name unknown until after

death he was pronounced to be John

Robertson. 

He will be remembered through out

the graffiti world for his style and

fatherhood of graffiti in London.