Banksy in Warsaw

Who is the world's most famous living artist? 

I asked ChatGPT 5.0 to tell me: "Based on global public recognition, it is Banksy. He is a superstar whose media reach is unmatched. He regularly makes global, front-page news (not just art news) for his stunts. His anonymity and political/social stunts – like shredding a painting immediately after it sold for millions of  pounds – turn every new piece into a worldwide event. His work is instantly recognisable and shared virally across social media. His art is accessible, being on public walls, not in museums. By placing his art on streets and bridges, it is seen by millions of people who will never set foot in a gallery. His style is iconic; the instantly recognisable stencils – Girl with Balloon, rats, chimps with signs. His signature stencil style is referenced in pop culture, making his visual brand ubiquitous." 

I asked Google Gemini 2.5 for a second opinion: "If I had to go for one living artist, based on general public recognition, it would be Banksy. His fame is driven by factors that go beyond the museum circuit: Anonymity – the mystery of his identity generates continuous global media coverage. Accessibility: His art appears in public spaces (streets, walls), making it accessible to millions without needing a museum ticket. Viral content: His works are inherently political, witty, and highly photographic, making them go viral on social media immediately. Stunts: Events like the self-shredding of a painting at auction have turned him into a global cultural phenomenon, not just an artist.

And so when an exhibition of works by the World's Most Famous Living Artist arrives in Warsaw, it is An Event. Below: the Banksy exhibition in Warsaw is certainly proving a draw. Saturday afternoon crowds. (Details at the bottom.)

So there we have it. David Hockney, Jeff Koons, Yayoi Kusama and Gerhard Richter lag far behind in terms of recognition. Banksy is much closer to the cultural zeitgeist, and closer to the ordinary person on the street of our planet's towns and cities. Yet his roots lie in the morally questionable practice of defacing someone else's property with spray paint.

I have a visceral aversion to graffiti of the mindless sort; it fouls the aesthetics of the places in which we spend our lives. We have, as a population, become inured to graffiti as a sort of low-level pollution, along with litter and smoke, though we can pick up the former, and wind clears the air. I believe that corporal punishment (a pair of black eyes delivered to the miscreant under medical supervision), or being drafted into a military clear-up brigade, or simply being forced to pay for the removal of the offending tags, is needed. Zero tolerance, especially for defacing historic stone or brick.

There is a world of difference between a Banksy and a simple tag squirted thoughtlessly on private (or indeed public) property. Some street art is to be admired or is there to make passers-by reflect. But real street art accounts for 0.01% of what is sprayed every day onto surfaces of our urban environments.

From out of that depressing, oftentimes threatening, visual sludge, formed by hundreds of millions of protozoan taggers, has evolved one apex artist called Banksy. Clearly this is art work. Immense amount of thought, planning and passion stand behind it. Banksy supports Causes – anti-war, anti-capitalism, animal welfare, urban blight, climate change, Ukraine, Palestine, the National Health Service. Banksy's aim is to shake up people's indifference to the suffering of others. 

Each new Banksy work becomes an event. Below: the mural Royal Courts of Justice was created exactly two months ago (8 September 2025) and removed from said building the following day. An act of criminal damage (defacing a listed building) or a well-timed political statement? A London art-gallery owner said the piece could have been carefully taken down (presumably along with the fabric of the wall it was on) and sold at auction for £5 million, making its washing away also an act of criminal damage. Banksy tends to give the millions made at auction for his works to charity in any case.

Below: exit through the gift shop. Get your Banksy merch. T-shirts, mugs, prints etc. "Copyright is theft, man!"

The Mystery of Banksy – A Genius Mind is on from 10 October 2025 to 11 January 2026 at the Soho Art Center, ul. Minska 63. Nearly 150 exhibits including those from the Walled-Off Hotel installation in Palestine, the Dismal Land 'fun fair' in Weston-Super-Mare, and the six murals Banksy produced in Ukraine in November 2022. All the works are instantly recognisable; the exhibition confirmed in my own mind Banksy's status as the world's most famous living artist. 

Though in 500 years will his works rank alongside those of Michelangelo, Vermeer, Monet and Van Gogh?

This time ten years ago:
Remembrance Sunday, Northolt

This time 15 years ago:
Death on the tracks

Bright autumnal moods

Since Wednesday morning, the weather has been begging for my constant presence outdoors. In response, I have been breaking up my walks to get some paces in early, then some more around lunchtime, and then again around sunset. Below: golden leaves on silver birches against a perfectly blue sky, on the farm track between Jakubowizna and Grobice

Below: around the corner from my działka, returning from a morning walk, the sun still low in the sky.

Below: early afternoon, the level crossing between Chynów and Węszelówka. A local Koleje Mazowieckie train on its way to Radom, and in the distance, the PKP InterCity Lubomirski TLK service from Szczecin to Zakopane heading down the 'up' line, about to overtake the local train.

The sunset walk: this is the currently vacant Sala Venus, the restaurant behind the former BP (now Transoil) petrol station. Once a thriving venue for wedding receptions, the premises await a new operator.

Below: the Droga Krajowa nr. 50 (DK50), Warsaw's de facto southern ring-road. Will this become a motorway within the next eight to ten years? Keep following this blog.

Below: frozen with a 1/500th second exposure (rather than a long exposure like here), the Koleje Mazowieckie Radomianka limited-stop double-decker service approaches Chynów station at the end of my lane.

The combination of a full/almost full moon and a clear sky prompted short nocturnal strolls to the end of the asphalt and beyond a bit further into the orchards.

"Don't the moon look lonesome, shinin' through the trees" – moonrise from my działka.

My weather app suggests that the spell of four days of blue sky and relatively warm weather is an approaching an end; a foggy start tomorrow. Nearly two weeks of early-to-bed, early-to-rise, plus lots of sunshine, and the Hammer of Darkness is nowhere to be felt.

This time last year:
Memories, memes and dreams

This time two years ago:
Fully automatic – intuitive intelligence

This time four years ago:
A deeply spiritual experience

This time five years ago:

Poland experiences its first wave of Covid

This time eight years ago:
Gliwice's new station

This time ten years ago:
Reanimated – my father's car 

This time 11 years ago:
Defending Poland against hybrid warfare 

This time 12 years ago:
Another office move

This time 14 years ago:
PiS splits again – Solidarna Polska formed 

This time 15 years ago:
Tesco vs. Auchan

[Since then Tesco has left Poland and I'm still boycotting Auchan – let its owners choke on their fucking roubles.]

This time 18 years ago:
My father's house

Will a motorway roar through Chynów? And if so, when?

The DK50 (Droga Krajowa Nr. 50), Warsaw's de facto southern ring-road, runs from Sochaczew to Mińsk Mazowiecki, crossing the Vistula at Góra Kalwaria. It is the official east-west transit route bypassing Warsaw. Together with the DK60, the northern ring-road, the DK60 forms an orbital route around the capital. But the DK50/60 is a series of local bypasses, typically with one carriageway in each direction, connecting roads that run through villages. A bit like London's North and South Circulars. There are plans to build a proper orbital motorway around Warsaw, with a minimum of two carriageways in each direction. 

This is the AOW (Autostradowa Obwodnica Warszawy), or A50 (motorway-grade sections)/S50 (expressway-grade sections). 

But which route should this new orbital motorway take? 

Now, between the A2 east-west motorway in Sochaczew and the S7 north-south expressway in Grójec, there are four optional routes marked out by Poland's highways agency, GDDKiA (Generalna Dyrekcja Dróg Krajowych i Autostrad). Three variants have been staked out for a long time now, a fourth has come into play. This fourth option assumes a route that will emerge south-east of Grójec and connect with the existing stretch of DK50 between Grójec and Góra Kalwaria. And that the DK50 will be widened to form a stretch of the A50 between those two towns – with no junction in between for Chynów. So Chynów, Sułkowice, Grobice, and other villages strung out along the DK50 will get all the noise and nuisance that building and operating a motorway will entail with none of the benefits. 

So! "Say No! To Option Four!" is the view of the people of Gmina Chynów. But then "Say No! To Options One, Two and Three" are the view of the people of Gmina Tarczyn, Gmina Mszczonów and Gmina Pniewy. One way or another, the motorway will cut through people's lands and orchards and blight their views and their peace; the only question is which people? Us or them?

The people of Tarczyn (pop. 4,500) are clear on this one: they want the motorway to run through the land of the people of Grójec and Chynów. Options 1, 2 and 3 all run to some extent through Gmina Tarczyn, so clearly its citizens want it shoved off to their south. They are already promoting Option 4 on the social media (below). My disagreement is marked in red.

This evening, there was a public meeting held in the village hall in Chynów (pop. 1,100) to discuss this. The hall was full, with maybe 10% of the village's adults present, there was much interest in the topic, and much concern about the fall in local quality of life for those nearest (within 750m) of the motorway. There will be compensation for those living within that distance; my działka is 1,250m from the DK50.

One way or another, the stretch of A50 linking the A2 in Sochaczew to the S7 in Grójec will not be completed until 2032 at the very earliest, and work on extending the A50 eastwards towards the Vistula will not begin until 2035 at the very earliest. Knowing how slow projects proceed, how many missed deadlines along the way, it's likely that the full ring of the A50 will open around 2037-38 or so. However, the decision as to which of the four options will be chosen has to be taken fairly soon. This will affect land values.

To follow the debate online (in Polish), the best source of information and opinion is Skyscraper City, which has sections on every major infrastructure and construction project in Poland. Click here for the OAW A50/S50 thread (from the beginning, in 2019). Back then, building works were foreseen to start in 2026 with completion by 2029, so it's already slipped a lot.

There are no voices calling for the project to be scrapped, just a heated debate about where the motorway should (or rather should not) run. On the basis of those who protest the loudest are most likely to be listened to, the NIMBY in my suggests that the people of Chynów lock arms with the people of Grójec (pop. 17,000) and jointly Say No! To Option Four (and indeed Four A). Option Four cuts through the top end of Grójec itself, its edge-of-town shopping centre, and many orchards. Option Four A swings round south, bypassing Grójec, but then ensuring that the A50 has no other path to take than along the current DK50.

All of this is going on against the backdrop of a spirited election for wójt (mayor) of Gmina Chynów, following the unexpected death of Tadeusz Zakrzewski. All of the candidates are against Wariant 4 (option 4); the winner may be decided by which candidate demonstrates the most convincing strategy to ward off the prospect of a motorway running through our land.

This time last year:
The pathetic fallacy – are animals sentient?

This time three years ago:
Sunny Sunday meditations

This time nine years ago:
To Dawidy Bankowe, Łady, Zamienie and back

This time 14 years ago:
Town planning and the Sublime Aesthetic

This time 15 years ago:
On the long road from Zero to One

This time 16 years ago:
Łódź Rising

In the early November sky

What are we seeing here? Nine photos, the first (top left) taken at 16:01, the last (bottom right) taken at 16:08 yesterday, so a few minutes after sunset. Looking due west from Chynów, this looks to me like a pair of military fast jets, with afterburners on. One seems to have an old-school jet that's leaving a smoky trail. Flying close together when I first spotted them, they were slowly moving apart. Remember, seven minutes separate the first image from the last. What do you think?

Below: the fourth image (first from left, middle row), blown up large.

Update from 5 November: these links are in Polish about the event... something in the skies over Mazowsze and Świętokrzyskie provinces. (Google Chrome will translate for non-Polish readers).

The military is looking for a downed craft in Świętkokrzyskie

Fiery orbs over Poland: reports from several provinces

Bright object over Kielce: there is an explanation

Below: at the extreme end of my 70-300mm zoom lens and at the limits of how much I can blow up an image using Photoshop. I was curious as to what was flying beyond the treeline, just out of sight. Sounded too big to be a small helicopter... Turns out it was an unusual two-ship formation, a helicopter and an aeroplane. The former, a Robinson R44 Raven II, registration SP-OMG, the latter an Aero AT-3, registration SP-PPL, which belongs to the Warsaw Aeroclub. Two nice regs! After they flew past, I opened the ADS-B Exchange app on my phone to get those details. No cut-and-paste trickery here; these two really were flying that close together. Could have been a photoshoot? Lovely day for it! About 20 minutes later, the Raven flew back the way it came, this time unescorted.

Below: a Bell 206 Jet Ranger, flying west to east over Chynów. I can't make out the registration from this distance. Not the Polish police – their Jet Ranger has a turret-mounted camera in the nose.

Below: Diamond Katana DA20-C1, registration SP-NDE, from the flight training school in Dęblin.

Below: aerial feline – Pacyfik sitting comfortably in a nest in a tree in my garden. All my kittens are as sure-footed up trees as they are darting around my kitchen.

Below: watching today's sunset from my bedroom window, Scrapper, Pacyfik, Czestuś and Céleste. Photo exposed for the foreground, so the sunset's somewhat washed out.

Now let's see it as it was, exposed for the sky, vibrance and saturation untouched, image out of the box.

This time last year:
Autumn joy, continued

This time six years ago:
Recycling my father's possessions

This time seven years ago:
You can always go downtown

This time nine years ago:
Opinions vs facts – our media today

This time ten years ago:
Judging PO's eight years in power

This time 11 years ago
Cloudless, 18C – the beauty of Polish autumn

This time 12 years ago: 
Call 19115: Warsaw Fix-my-Street

This time 14 years ago:
Vapour trails at sunset

This time 15 years ago:
Autumnal blues

All Souls' Day Pilgrimage

A good pilgrimage for the day. I set out in daylight, arriving at the cemetery in Rososz around sunset, and walk back in darkness. Five kilometres there, five kilometres home. And a chance to look at a cemetery at the end of the two-day commemorations of Zaduszki, All Souls' Day or in Latin, Commemoratio Omnium Fidelium Defunctorum. Those Poles who had not visited the graves yesterday came today, which means that maximum candlelight is to be seen in the evening of 2 November. 

Doing my shopping in Lidl on Friday, the aisles were blocked with pallets of votive candles, advertised as having a burn time of 72 hours. Buy on Friday, light on Saturday, it will still be burning brightly on Sunday. And on Sunday evening, cars were still turning up bringing visitors to the cemetery.

Rososz is a small community; the cemetery belongs to the parish church, which was built in 1985, the earliest graves in this cemetery dates back to the late 1980s. As such, this is an unusual place to visit; it's neither large, nor historic, nor famous. But a visit it merits, the destination of a reasonably long walk. As with yesterday's visit, I look at each grave, noting the names – so many familiar surnames, reminding me of people I grew up with in Polish London. And those surnames that raise a wry smile, simply because they don't exist in an English context (Jeż = Hedgehog or Myszka = Mouse). And the age at death. Like in Chynów, so many died all too early – especially the men. All too often I see: "Zm. śm. trag." the date and the age; "zmarł śmiercią tragiczną" – he died a tragic death.

I came, I experienced, I felt.

This time last year:
To Warka, again

This time two years ago:
Early-November reflections
[More photographs from Rososz cemetery]

This time six years ago:

Autumn moods, Ealing

This time seven years ago
Walks in the early-November sun

This time ten years ago:
Foggy evening, London

This time 11 year:
Kraków – Europe's top short-break destination 

This time 13 years ago:
Rzeczpospolita publishes infamous 'trotyl' Smolensk story

This time 14 years ago:
Wilanowska - south Warsaw transport hub

This time 16 years ago:
Powiśle on a cold, clear autumn morning

This time 16 years ago:
Okęcie "to remain Warsaw's only airport"

This time 18 years ago:
Searching for autumnal perfection

Death comes to mind

Today is All Saints' Day (Wszystkich Świętych), tomorrow is All Souls' Day (Zaduszki). Falling this year on a weekend, the two days draw all of Poland to its cemeteries to remember the departed. The time of year coincides with the death of both of my parents; my mother on the night of 31 October to 1 November (2015), my father on 28 October (2019).

Poland's cemeteries are ablaze with candles; this is a beautiful and meaningful tradition that is taken seriously by most and ignored by few. I find the best time to go is just after sunset, in the fading light of day. My walk today took me to the cemetery in Chynów. 

As I have noted in past years, I am struck by how young men used to die in rural Poland. I walked along one row of graves and counted 16 belonging to men; ten died younger than my current age (68), only six died at the age of 68 or older. Having said that, the newest graves do show a marked tendency for greater male longevity than the historical average. Having said that, the wójt (mayor) of the gmina (municipality) of Chynów, Tadeusz Zakrzewski, died on 19 September – aged 66. The election for a new mayor takes place on Sunday 7 December; candidates' posters are up all over the gmina.

Below: the nearest grave is of father and son; both died at the age of 67.

I walked home the long way, down the (recently asphalted) ulica Spokojna, as far as the railway tracks. Left: an impressionist view looking towards the forest. The moon might look full, but it is only 81% waxing gibbous. Will be full just before midnight on the fifth (fireworks night in the UK). Note the reflection of the moon at the bottom of the image; this is an artefact of the lens rather than a puddle. 

Below: the San InterCity express from Warsaw to Przemyśl hustles through Chynów station, exactly on time. Stopping at Warka, Radom, Sandomierz and Rzeszów on the way.

Below: gratuitous cat photo – Arcturus on the doorstep to see me off on my walk. "Don't be too long, human, cats will be wanting to eat." Looking very grown up at four and half months old. About the same size as his mother, Wenusia.

I am still adhering to my SAD-busting routine, waking up half an hour before sunrise. Below: view from my kitchen window of dawn breaking through the trees of the forest next door to my działka.

The sight of a sunrise is powerfully uplifting; it sets me off for the day and is a signal that one has to make the most of the day – and one's life.

This time last year:
All Saints' Day, Chynów

This time three years ago:
Thoughts on the occasion of Allhallowtide 

This time four years ago:
Four days of sublime Golden Autumn

This time six years ago:
Obit

This time seven years ago:
The Good News

This time nine years ago:

Jeziorki railway modernisation – update

This time ten years ago:
On the death of my mother

This time 11 years ago:
Marek Raczkowski on All Saints' Day

This time 12 years ago:
Disclosure of UFOs - are we ready? 

This time 13 years ago:
Jeziorki pond development

This time 14 years ago:
Captain Wrona's perfect gear-up landing

This time 17 years ago:
Where's the daylight gone?

This time 18 years ago:
All Saints' Day - Wszystkich Świętych

Letters to an Imaginary Grandson (IX)

Should you avoid risks, or take risks? Neither and both. You should be aware of what is a risk and assess that risk before choosing whether to go for it or back off. Consider the consequences if it going optimally or going wrong. Consider the secondary and tertiary consequences as well as the obvious one. Can your decision to take the risk be undone, walked back from? Or will you be stuck with it for years, or for life?

"Quid quid agis, prudenter agas, et respice finem," as my mother, who died exactly ten years ago today, would tell me. "Whatever you do, do it prudently/wisely and consider the end result/the outcome. As a child, I'd question the word 'whatever'. Does this literally mean every single thing you do? If so, your brain would fry from having to consider every possible possibility whenever doing anything more challenging than breathing or blinking.

Well, yes. Even if momentarily. The chosen course of action could go wrong, or it could bring reward. Half a second's conscious thought is a better guide than no thought at all. Intuition is a good guide to follow, even better than thought. There's the danger of over-thinking things, 'paralysis by analysis'. Better to find yourself 'in the flow', that blessed state when your consciousness is aligned with the Purpose of the Universe and everything naturally falls into place.

Consider why you are interested in taking the risk. Good reasons? Or bad ones (seeking glory, riches, luxury)? This should be an important filter.

With age comes experience, the bitter-sweet experience of risks taken or avoided, and it becomes easier at 65 to assess whether an upcoming risk is worth taking or not than at 15 or 20. But as a young man, with a lifetime of decisions ahead, being able to identify risks in the first place is essential. Ethics stand as a useful filter. Don't take what doesn't belong to you. You may think you can get away with it, maybe you can, maybe you can't. However, it's not about the risk of getting caught –  theft is morally wrong and legally sanctioned. 

Moving to Poland with a young family in 1997 was a risk, though less of a risk than in 1990. The decision proved to be absolutely the right one. 

[Incidentally, following on from yesterday's post: went to bed at 21:30 yesterday (22:30 summertime) and got up at 05:00 today (06:00 summertime), seven and half hours in bed, nearly all of it spent sleeping.]

This time last year:
Valencia and manmade climate change

This time last year:
On death

This time four years ago:
Improvements on the Radom line

This five years ago:
Rural rights of way, revisited

This time six years ago:

Cause of death

This time seven years ago:
Opole in the late-October sunshine

This time eight years ago:
Work begins in earnest on the Karczunkowska viaduct

This time ten years ago:
Sublime autumn day in Jeziorki

This time 11 years ago:
CitytoCity, MalltoMall

This time 12 years ago:
(Internet) Radio Days

This time 13 years ago:
Another office move

This time 14 years ago:
Manufacturing a City of Culture

This time 15 years ago:
My thousandth post

This time 16 years ago:
Closure of ul. Poloneza

This time 17 years ago:
Scenes from a suburban petrol station

Cherish the Morning Light

Five days into the time change, and my strategy is paying off handsomely. I am still going to sleep four and half hours after sunset and waking up an hour before sunrise. Society, however, has combined to move its activities an hour back. This causes humans to go to bed and rise an hour later than hitherto; this did not happen to cats. Their circadian rhythm goes on as it has done, dictated by dawn and dusk. You may wish to benefit from a lie-in, but animals need feeding at the regular time.

The main reason I ignore the time change is to make the most of the shrinking day. Less than ten hours today, and by 21 December, the shortest day, we'll have less than eight hours of daylight. Missing the dawn because you've been told that it's acceptable to have a lie-in is bad for mental health, as is staying up that extra hour later in the evening. My bedroom clock remains set to summertime, keeping me grounded in solar realities.

And so, I went to bed yesterday at 10pm (11pm summertime) and woke up at 5:30am (6:30am summertime). Eight and half hours in bed, waking up twice for a wee (and dropping off straight after). A good night's sleep. Out of bed, I feed the kittens, make myself a coffee, open the laptop, click on BBC Radio 4 expecting to hear Farming Today to find that it's not even 5am in London yet. But I have gained an hour's daylight, and having eaten breakfast, the sun rises. So around half past six I am ready to go out for my first walk of the day. I get 8.000 paces in before returning home in good time for the morning call with the office.

Below: round the corner from my działka on the unpaved road that winds its way towards Grobice. Three new houses are currently being built along this stretch.

Below: back home and the kittens are out in the front garden. Right-click to open the image in a new tab, then expand it to see them – all five together (from l to r: Czestuś, Pacio, Arkcio, Céleste and Scrapper).

Below: zooming on them. A good breakfast, then out in the open air. What more could growing kittens require?

Having done the bulk of the day's paces in the morning, I can focus on work until the mid-afternoon, and then get ready to chase the sunset. Should be a good one! Below: looking at the DK50 at Nowe Grobice.

Below: a double-decker Koleje Mazowieckie train approaches Chynów station against a dramatic sky.

Two walks, total over 13,000 paces; daily average across the first ten months of this year is just over 12,500 paces every day since 1 January.

This time last year:
Post-consumerist hygiene

This time last year:
October's benign end

This time two years ago:
Disclosure day tomorrow?
[Next congressional UFO hearing: 13 November 2024]

This time three years ago:
Coping with time change (go to bed an hour earlier!)

This time four years ago:
A sustainable food system for rural Poland

This time five years ago:
Sifting through a life

This time seven years ago:
Throwing It All Away

This time nine years ago:
Hammer of Darkness falls on us again
[This is what going to be early in winter protects us from!]

This time ten years ago:
The working week with the clocks gone back

This time 12 years:
Slowly on the mend after calf injury

This time 13 years ago:
Thorunium the Gothick

This time 14 years ago:
Łódź Widzew or Widź Łódzew 

This time 16 years ago:
A touch of frost in the garden