Originally painted in 1968 on the side of an Amsterdam museum building, this Keith Haring mural was covered in a subsequent renovation before recently being revealed once again to the public.

Standing 40 feet high, the drawing was added to complement an indoor exhibit at the Stedelijk Museum. A new layer to the exterior facade, however, later shrouded it from view for decades to follow.

For years, other artists like Mick La Rock have been pushing to expose the art once again. Finally, a move by the museum itself out of the building made that possible — the climate-controlling panels were no longer needed. In the end, the conversion of the structure to a grocery store from a museum enabled this reveal.

The original work is Haring’s largest in Europe. Created over a period of two days, it features a mythical creature and figures common to the artist’s work. More about the artist: “Keith Haring was born on May 4, 1958 in Reading, Pennsylvania, and was raised in nearby Kutztown, Pennsylvania. He developed a love for drawing at a very early age, learning basic cartooning skills from his father and from the popular culture around him, such as Dr. Seuss and Walt Disney.”

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“In addition to being impressed by the innovation and energy of his contemporaries, Haring was also inspired by the work of Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Alechinsky, William Burroughs, Brion Gysin and Robert Henri’s manifesto The Art Spirit, which asserted the fundamental independence of the artist. With these influences Haring was able to push his own youthful impulses toward a singular kind of graphic expression based on the primacy of the line.”

A set of mathematical processes developed for use in crime-fighting and disease-tracking indicates that one already-suspected individual may indeed be the infamous graffiti and installation artist known as Banksy.

The approach of “geographical profiling” is often used to track down repeat offenders, serial criminals whose strikes began to form patterns that can be productively analyzed by experts and run through models by mathematicians.

The findings help paint a picture of probable places of residence and areas of everyday operation, criminal or otherwise, sometimes narrowing the search to an area as small as a few hundred square feet.

Steven Le Comber, a biologist at the the University of London, learned of geographic profiling from Kim Rossmo, a criminologist at Texas State University, growing interested because of potential applications for disease vector studies. The two then began teaming up to find both pathogens and people.

In this case, their modeling shows clusters of activity in London and Bristol based around 140 data points, specifically: sites of known or alleged works by Banksy. Their findings, reported in the Journal of Spatial Science, suggest a handful of addresses in London (a pub, park and residence) all associated with one Robin Gunningham.

Already suspected of being Banksy, Gunningham may yet be a ruse or a plant, but science suggests the individual is very likely connected with the artist, one way or another. As to the question: who is Banksy? We may never really know for sure.

From the abstract: “The pseudonymous artist Banksy is one of the UK’s most successful contemporary artists, but his identity remains a mystery. Here, we use a Dirichlet process mixture (DPM) model of geographic profiling, a mathematical technique developed in criminology and finding increasing application within ecology and epidemiology, to analyse the spatial patterns of Banksy artworks in Bristol and London. The model takes as input the locations of these artworks, and calculates the probability of ‘offender’ residence across the study area. Our analysis highlights areas associated with one prominent candidate (e.g., his home), supporting his identification as Banksy.”

By now you may know that the world’s most famous street artist has indeed not been detained by police and his identity remains secret, but how much do you know about the prankster who perpetrated this scandalous subterfuge? For those who missed the start of this affair: a supposedly anonymous author claimed Banksy was unmasked and taken into custody by London police a few days ago during an elaborate sting operation – the story spread like wildfire despite being easy (for those so inclined) to debunk.

Paul Horner, the man behind the National Report piece, fingered himself as the real Banksy. In reality, he is a serial hoaxer with a history of viral exploits (often involving his own identity) of which this is simply the latest. In many ways, he is a subversive and comedic artist in his own right, arguably not so unlike Banksy after all, who has himself been known to dupe fans for fun if not profit. One could argue that Horner’s artistic stunts simply take other shapes, like writing, coming out of a background of activism and comedy. He is also not the only one who has cleverly used Banksy’s own stunts for creative monetary gain.

His fake story, titled Graffiti Artist Banksy Arrested In London; Identity Revealed, has been shared 3.5 million times on Facebook so far, despite being published on a website well known for reporting fictional (and frequently  hilariously improbable) news. Another early clue: the article’s thin sourcing is relatively transparent: a link to the BBC takes you to their homepage, not an article. For anyone in doubt, there is also fresh new work up on Banksy.co.uk, shown below.

Beyond that, the article is riddled with inaccuracies, including inconsistent locations and names as well as an image of an arrest that took place years prior in an unrelated incident. Indeed, the further you read, the more ludicrous the entire thing looks, and yet it fooled millions of believers, too gullible or perhaps simply too eager to finish the piece before sharing it. Superficially, in defense of those duped, it has all of the trappings of a real breaking news piece, including seemingly-relevant pictures and videos peppered throughout.

As for Horner, he “has been alternately described as a media troll, a liar and a hack, but he sees his work in a different light: one part activism, one part fan fiction, and many parts subversive, absurdist comedy.” His exploits include (but are not limited to) claiming he was cast in The Big Lebowski 2 (a film that is not even in production) and the mastermind behind a plan to charge Facebook users for pro accounts. Some would call his pranks and pretensions cruel, but in the midst of the controversy, one has to wonder: what does the real Banksy think of all of this? Does he see a kindred spirit or simply someone using his name to turn a profit?