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Fiona Banner (born 1966), also known as The Vanity Press, is a British artist. Her work encompasses sculpture, drawing, installation and text, and demonstrates a long-standing fascination with the emblem of fighter aircraft and their role within culture and especially as presented on film. (2025). 9781913947590, Laurence King Publishing Ltd. ISBN 9781913947590 She is well known for her early works in the form of 'wordscapes', written transcriptions of the frame-by-frame action in Hollywood war films, including Top Gun and Apocalypse Now. Her work has been exhibited in prominent international venues such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York and Hayward Gallery, London. Banner was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2002.
In 1995, she was included in General Release: Young British Artists held at the XLVI Venice Biennale.
Since 1994 Banner has created handwritten and printed texts – 'wordscapes' – that retell in her own words entire feature films, including Point Break (1991) and The Desert (1994), or particular scenarios in detail. Her work took the form of solid single blocks of text, often the same shape and size as a cinema screen. She also investigates the formal components of written language, giving significance to the symbols that punctuate sentences. (2025). 9781854374653, Tate Pub. ISBN 9781854374653
In 1997, when she published THE NAM, she started working under the imprint of The Vanity Press, and has since published an extensive archive of books, objects and performances, many questioning the notion of authorship and copyright. (2025). 9781913947590, Laurence King Publishing Ltd. ISBN 9781913947590 For Banner, the act of publishing is itself a performative one. Consequently, her work resits traditional notions of grandeur and exclusivity, instead deploying a pseudo formality that is playful and provocative. THE NAM is a 1,000-page book which describes the plots of six Vietnam films in their entirety: the films are Apocalypse Now, Born on the Fourth of July, The Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket, Hamburger Hill and Platoon.
Following her shows at the , and Dundee Contemporary Arts, Banner was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2002.
Since early 2000, Banner has been working with pornographic film as a basis for an exploration of our obsession with sex, and the extreme limits of written communication. In large, densely filled works she transcribe the varied sexual activities taking place in Asswoman in Wonderland, starring Tiffany Mynx, who also directed this X-rated version of Alice's fictional adventures. Banner's own Arsewoman in Wonderland (2001), presented in the Turner Prize exhibition, is a 4 × 6 m printed description of the film pasted and layered sheet after sheet onto the wall like and overladen billboard. 'I wanted to make some work about sex but I couldn't describe it. I was too close to it and I did not have the words that close to hand. I looked again at ports as a way of investigating my own taboo. Just as with the war films I enjoyed it but found it hard to grasp; it was intimate yet distant, seductive yet sometimes repulsive. My response to the film was very emotional.' The Guardian asked, "It's art. But is it porn?" calling in "Britain's biggest porn star", Ben Dover, to comment.Brockes, Emma "It's art. But is it porn?", The Guardian online, 5 November 2002. Retrieved 21 May 2007. The prize was won that year by Lancastrian artist Keith Tyson.
In 2009 she issued herself an International Standard Book Number (), and registered herself as a publication under her own name. She was then photographed with the ISBN tattooed on her lower back.
In 2010, she was selected to create the 10th Duveen Hall commission at Tate Britain[3] Art Review magazine, January 2010 for which she transformed and displayed two decommissioned Royal Air Force fighter jets. (2025). 9781913947590, Laurence King Publishing Ltd. ISBN 9781913947590
On 1 October 2010, in an open letter to the British government's culture secretary Jeremy Hunt—co-signed by a further 27 previous Turner prize nominees, and 19 winners—Banner opposed any future cuts in public funding for the arts. In the letter the cosignatories described the arts in Britain as a "remarkable and fertile landscape of culture and creativity."Peter Walker, " Turner prize winners lead protest against arts cutbacks," The Guardian, 1 October 2010.
Banner’s work includes sculpture, drawing and installation; text is the core of her oeuvre. She is one of the "key names",Grant, Simon. "Cultural propganda?"[sic] , Apollo, 27 March 2009. Retrieved 13 June 2010. along with Jake and Dinos Chapman, Gary Hume, Sam Taylor-Wood, Tacita Dean and Douglas Gordon, of the Young British Artists. "Fiona Banner born 1966", Tate. Retrieved 13 June 2010. Archived at WebCite.Darwent, Charles. "The painted word", New Statesman, 12 February 1999. Retrieved 13 June 2010.Johnson, Ken. "Art in review; Fiona Banner, The New York Times, 26 March 1999. Retrieved 13 June 2010.Colin Gleadell. Market news: the bronze age", The Daily Telegraph, 3 November 2003. Retrieved 13 June 2010.
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