The street artist and all around darling of art critics the world over -as well as Brangelina- Banksy, was unmasked a few years ago; though it didn't really make the rounds until recently. While perusing Vice online recently, there was a brief story on another darling of the art scene in downtown nyc, Neck Face. He is masked in the photos that accompany the piece, though photos of Neck Face with no facial obstructions frequently appear online in a variety of places, always unidentified. If you're reading Vice, you've most likely seen a photo of Neck Face with no mask. So repeatedly seeing a photo of Neck Face masked, with those eyes or hair exposed, would allow you to know when you are looking at a photo of an unmasked Neck Face.
Bucky Turco, Publisher of Animal New York, covered the Banksy story, and while at Complex Magazine, received a cease and desist from some suits after he published Banksy's photo. Seeing that it is common for Neck Face to appear in photos online, hiding in plain site, and what with all this unmasking of Banksy, I sent an email to Bucky to ask him what's the deal? How come no ever reveals Neck Face?
Bucky responds, slipping in a little dig at the Wooster Collective in the process, "I think there's a fine balance between being a rat and reporting on these guys. As far as Banksy goes, he got outed by a mainstream newspaper back in 2004 and everyone was just too lazy to look and recently now getting ID’d by another media outlet. Due to Animal's support of the illegal artform graffiti, we don't want to be the ones uncovering artists, but that doesn't mean we'll ignore their uncovering like the Wooster Collective does when news about Banksy is reported. Plus, NECKFACE ain't no where near as prolific as Banksy."As I noted in an email back, "that was a real fine explanation. Seems very reasonable. "
So for now, Neck Face still remains officially 'anonymous'.
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