A news report announces that the identity of the creator of iconic works such as “Girl with Balloon”—a mural depicting a girl who has let go of (or is trying to reach for?) a heart-shaped balloon—has been revealed. This work, which lends itself to various interpretations, became the British public’s favorite according to a 2017 survey. The interest in discovering who operates under the name Banksy is not new and has given rise to various theories.

It is an interesting phenomenon that makes us reflect on the role of the author’s identity in artistic practice. After all, there is something that allows us to recognize that a work is by a particular artist—whether through the use of materials, a particular handling of formal elements, or the themes addressed. Painters like Bosch manage to create a new world, with their own characters, symbols, and references that bring the work to life. And we speak of Bosch, not of Hieronymus van Aken. Even when artists sign their works with their original names, that name becomes detached from the person and takes on a new status.

Consequently, it is not clear that the identity of the person engaged in artistic practice determines the relationship between a name and a body of work. The issue becomes more complex with contemporary art, since the artist is no longer necessarily the one responsible for the creation of the work. This is the wager of Duchamp’s ready-made, which traumatized the very conception of the artist and the artist’s work.

We find something similar in the field of psychoanalysis, where Jacques Lacan emphatically argued that the analyst does not operate from their identity. Just as Banksy does with his work, the analyst is a function that maintains a distance from the person who embodies it. Someone must embody that function, but at the same time, in their act as an analyst, that person separates themselves from any identity. An analyst is not the product of an ego that defines itself as such, but rather the result of the analytic experience itself. The analyst, then, would do well to follow Banksy’s example: to empty out their identity in order to embody a void and a condensation of libido that gives rise to their act.

In 2018, a framed copy of “Girl with a Balloon” sold for over one million pounds. Not only did the high price come as a surprise, but so did the shredder that began operating after the auction, leading to the destruction of the image and raising the question: which is the artwork? It is worth noting that the artist intended for the image to be completely shredded, but the machine malfunctioned halfway through. This error, which also surprised the artist, teaches us that there is no act without contingency.