Some of the best conversations I’ve had are about art - or really, what art is. Is it a framed painting of dogs playing poker? A multi-million dollar canvas that’s nothing but three stripes of solid colour? Anonymous street art? How about street art credited to the world’s most famous underground celebrity? Is Banksy’s graffiti art?

Banksy is the street name of an anonymous graffiti artist who has built up an unlikely empire of cheeky, anti-establishment pieces. His earliest and best-known pieces are stencilled onto walls on city corners in Bristol, England, but very soon he expanded into selling screenprints and canvasses. The sale of those prints funded more ambitious projects - wildly popular shows in the UK and US, collaborations with musicians, performance art pieces  - and now Banksy is well-known for huge, satirical installations, like Dismaland (the most miserable place on earth) and the Walled Off Hotel (a hotel with the “worst view in the world,” looking over the Israeli-Palestine border.) There are a few Banksy pieces scattered around Toronto, but if you’re interested in seeing more than eighty pieces in a funky, industrial setting, you can head over to 213 Sterling Road and the retrospective, The Art of Banksy.