The man who managed Banksy moves to Israel

Banksy’s name alone is enough to divide a room. His artwork has long drawn fire from the Jewish community: whether it was the image of the  Israeli soldier and masked Palestinian in a pillow fight, feathers erupting as a metaphor for conflict, or The Walled Off Hotel in the West Bank against the Israeli separation barrier.

Simon Durban was there for all of it.

As Banksy’s business manager – the man who handled the money, the projects and the problems. He was there at the boutique inn – “with the worst view  in the world” – smoothing logistics before Banksy swept in to wow the world’s press with his chutzpah.Simon Durban was Banksy’s gatekeeper.

And, unbelievably, he is Jewish.

“Did he know?” I ask. “I don’t recall at what point it was spoken about,” he replies carefully, “but it was known at some point.” Clearly.

It’s a sunny day in a garden centre, too quaint a setting to be talking about the artist whose identity Durban spent years protecting. The world still obsesses over who he really is. “We always met as privately as possible,” says the handsome man with blue eyes as intense as the topic. “He was tough to work for. But I learnt how to handle creative people who didn’t want to think about the numbers.”

Banksy’s art has often sparked division, but he is barely a bit-player now, amid the constant headlines. Days before our meeting, Israel was being bombed by Iran and most look weary, but not Simon. He is full of energy, determination and even relief, because he made a decision. “My ‘Welcome to Israel’ flight was in July,” he says simply. “I’m making aliyah.”

The irony is striking. After a decade managing the contentious artist, Simon will soon be living in Tel Aviv with girlfriend, Galit. “It seems it was always meant to be,” he says. Israel has been a thread running through his life.

“The first time I climbed a watchtower in Israel, it was 1989. I was 19 and on a gap year on Kibbutz Magen near the Gaza border. You could hear gunfire in the background. That story has been never-ending. Even back then, there was this sense of something unresolved.”

It was a watchtower in Gaza painted by Banksy that would later drive a wedge between the two men, but we park that tale of rupture to focus
on the manager.

Because before art there was accountancy. Simon studied at Middlesex University while working in the fashion shop Chevy in Golders Green. “It paid for uni, but I wish now I’d lived away from home, seen the world a bit before working. Sometimes I think those years might have shaped me differently.”

After graduating, he joined a Jewish firm of accountants. “Cohen Arnold,” he laughs. “Did two years there, but couldn’t pass the professional exams. Tried twice, got fed up with it.” But he got an early foundation in numbers and responsibility before a chance meeting with a pensions adviser led him to the music industry, running accounts for an indie label in Ladbroke Grove. “That’s where I learned everything,” he says. “I was in a different world – different people and I loved it. The music, the chaos, the deals.”

Later, he joined Defected Records and then Wall of Sound’s Mark Jones – a move that changed the course of his life.

Working at the label was a young, anonymous artist designing record sleeves and quietly growing a name: Banksy. “Mark introduced us because he needed help managing his affairs. He thought we’d be a good fit.”

Mark wasn’t wrong. “Banksy was completely off the radar at that point. We had to kosher him up.” We get the joke. When Wall of Sound was sold, Mark offered Simon the chance to stay. “But I could see the music industry changing. Labels were struggling, managers were harder to deal with. The writing was on the wall.”

A Banksy wall? “Well, a Google search, even in 2004, brought up 60 pages on him. People were on to him, even though there was no money yet.”

So Simon went with Banksy. Did he know about art, I wonder. “Nothing. I had no interest in it. Couldn’t honestly tell you if I’d ever been to an art gallery or museum. It didn’t matter, though. Art and music are kind of similar. And I knew how to work with creative, non-business-minded people.”

Their journey together was explosive. Banksy went “stratospheric”, says his former manager. “It just manifested in different ways and, in the most extraordinary circumstances, work took me to the West Bank in 2007.

That was the year Banksy built Santa’s Ghetto in Bethlehem’s Manger Square. “It was an amazing experience. We took a whole group
of artists with us. Nearly everyone painted on the security wall. We gave a lot of money to charity. I ended up working on a project in Nablus for underprivileged kids. But Hamas was running things. It was pretty hairy.”

Simon remembers leaving a family holiday in Tel Aviv to slip into the West Bank. I’m shocked. “Did it not feel weird? Disloyal?” His response is frank. “Honestly, I just felt like I was breaking new ground. A Jewish guy from north London trying to help in the West Bank.”

Gaza in 2014 was different. “That trip destroyed me mentally. It was horrendous. I should never, have done it. It was a crazy decision. But Banksy never forced me. We went out painting at six in
the morning; Hamas gunmen were patrolling.

We were ignored, but it didn’t feel safe. My biggest fear was departure through Ben Gurion [Airport]. I was absolutely terrified of getting pulled into  an office and cross-examined about what we’d been up to.”

Ahead of The Walled Off Hotel opening in 2017, there was a conversation. “We all thought it was a crazy idea. That it was going to cost an arm and
a leg, and there could be a bomb which flattens it the day after it opens.”

But ahead it went. “And it was a difficult project. Trying to get a hotel on booking.com when you’re dealing with an anonymous artist who wants everything a certain way made it infinitely harder. But it was a fantastic hotel. For fans of Banksy, it was  brilliant.”

Fifteen years was enough for both of us. I’d stopped enjoying it. I was burnt out from the personalities, the b*******t, the hassle, all the drama.

Still, there were red lines. “Banksy told me I was the appointed Jewish expert: ‘Read all the information panels in the museum. If there’s anything you’re unhappy with, let me know.’ Simon says: “Some people think it’s balanced.”

The rupture came with a poster of children flying on a Gaza watchtower ride above the words Visit Palestine. The Israel Defense Forces liked it so much they didn’t leave. “He thought it was funny – maybe more insulting to Palestinians than Israelis. But I said: ‘This is not funny. You’re close to crossing a line.’ I reminded him: ‘You told me if you did anything like this, you’d run it by me first. And you didn’t. And now you’ve got a s**t storm.’”

It was start of the breaking point. “Fifteen years was enough for both of us. I’d stopped enjoying it. I was burnt out from the personalities, the b*******t, the hassle, all the drama.”

Simon had also been a Banksy collector. “I sold over half my collection when the market peaked. It was the best thing I could have done.” He kept a few – the gift ones with his name on. I ask if he regrets not holding Banksy to account more. “I tried to be a strong voice within the organisation. But think what it would have been like if I wasn’t there.”

Like so many in the diaspora, I became more Zionist after the atrocities, he says. In Israel there’s no antisemitism. You’re with your own people. Everyone is just living normal, happy lives.

He pauses. Takes a sip of coffee. “I was part of this incredible thing, a street art movement. I wasn’t so political in those days. But back then October 7 hadn’t happened.”

Simon was on an intensive retreat (The Hoffman Process) in England on October 7 with no phones allowed. “I came out on 13th. They pulled me aside: ‘Hamas has invaded Israel.’ I couldn’t believe it. For Israelis to get slaughtered in their home was beyond my comprehension, and I knew the
damage it would have.”

Simon’s response was to re-enter the art world on his own terms. Through his platform Little 15 Art in April on Yom HaShoah in Tel Aviv he launched 07SH10AH23. The exhibition, whose title fuses the date of the attacks with the Shoah, confronts the aftermath of October 7 through the work of leading Israeli artists.

“Like so many in the diaspora, I became more Zionist after the atrocities,” he says. “In Israel there’s no antisemitism. You’re with your own people. Everyone is just living normal, happy lives. Here [in the UK], it’s not like that.”

There are Israelis who will dispute his rose-tinted view of the national trauma, but Simon is a newbie and in love with Galit, who “made the show happen” that he hopes to take to New York.

Among the 07SH10AH23 artists was Moran Stella Yanai, who was held hostage in Gaza for 54 days. There, she imagined a tunnel with light at the end and a girl holding a balloon. The girl was her and, once she was released, Moran painted the vision she had in captivity. On meeting Simon,
she told him she had been thinking of Banksy.

This story features as the cover of Life magazine – out today