Executed in 2011, Any Person Found belongs to a small edition of fifteen and reflects Banksy’s continuing examination of the uneasy relationship between graffiti and the established art world. Presented in the visual form of an official warning notice, the work appropriates a type of signage ordinarily used to regulate behaviour in public space and redirects its authority towards the mechanisms of the art market.

The composition is dominated by capitalised text warning that anyone found defacing the sign will be reported—not to the police, but to an art dealer. Its restrained palette, plain typography and weathered surface reproduce the functional appearance of municipal signage. Areas of emulsion and pencil introduce evidence of manual intervention, complicating the apparent uniformity of the screenprinted image and giving each impression a more materially individual character.

The altered warning turns the criminalisation of graffiti into a comment upon its subsequent commercial acceptance. Actions once treated as vandalism may acquire value when transferred from the street to a gallery, auction house or private collection. Banksy’s substitution of the art dealer for the police therefore exposes how cultural institutions can absorb and monetise forms of expression that originated in opposition to authority.

The combination of screenprint, emulsion and pencil places Any Person Found between an editioned print and a uniquely finished object. This material ambiguity reinforces the work’s broader enquiry into authorship, authenticity and value: the appearance of an anonymous public sign is transformed through the artist’s intervention, signature and restricted edition. Concise in form but deliberately self-implicating, the work addresses the commercial system in which it now circulates. A detailed condition report is available upon request.