#: locale=it
## Media
### Title
panorama_AFD3BCE7_A158_55B1_41E2_91978B5DCE48.label = 1
panorama_98F22F70_A3E8_75D7_41A1_D5D2E187807A.label = 10
panorama_B489547D_A639_DED7_41C1_BADD727EDE2F.label = 11
panorama_949B1CA9_863E_9B36_41C1_A9AB8B1B674E.label = 12
panorama_BB43AC91_AB69_AA5B_41E2_F1D73A8CB9C1.label = 13
panorama_9661F0A2_8629_AC80_41E0_5A2062419619.label = 14
panorama_BB532C0E_ABAE_B2F1_41D6_F353D385D65E.label = 15
panorama_BC719E1F_ABAE_CF10_41D3_CB1B26304459.label = 15-2
panorama_94A00BC6_ACEA_558E_41DD_AF230E619688.label = 16
panorama_A3FE69E4_AC9D_32F0_41DC_10F766AFE4B6.label = 17-a
panorama_D020E7C9_ACAD_BDFF_41B4_BAF83A866A7A.label = 17-b
panorama_D73375C7_ACAE_BDF3_4198_94C0A3080EC4.label = 18
panorama_C25334C3_ACAA_53F5_41A1_DFE84381BB92.label = 19
panorama_B56B9B50_A169_DCE8_41D3_12E9237AF662.label = 2
panorama_85E56B99_ACFB_172E_41E3_1A760389A970.label = 20
panorama_F94685F5_ACD6_5D9E_41DA_44C70B0FA696.label = 21
panorama_EE4FFCA9_ACFA_7380_41B8_98C0AC412984.label = 22
panorama_E8F91615_ACFA_5E81_41D0_24DF3230B975.label = 23
panorama_EA8FE405_ACFD_D281_41DB_21EA72FA4B20.label = 24
panorama_B6180E27_A1A8_F44D_41E1_0833C73C77C7.label = 3
panorama_BF957596_A1D8_545C_41E1_8BA23D786352.label = 4
panorama_83950B50_A1EB_DC2E_41B4_C4DFA84ED3EA.label = 5
panorama_85131847_A2A8_DBA4_41E4_1F79182F1E0B.label = 6
panorama_88EE714B_A2A8_EDA9_41DA_15058ECAC16B.label = 7
panorama_8D3E07B4_A3B9_D54A_41C5_A358BC5AF38F.label = 7a
panorama_97B66EA5_A3A8_374F_41D8_BF2C744DFD2A.label = 8
panorama_950FB8EB_A3D8_3CCD_41E3_63FBCD294133.label = 9
panorama_9325C40D_9D44_2832_41DA_3168043EAA6A.label = A_1
panorama_8B8D69BA_A11F_DB26_41C4_CA75C14D9177.label = A_3
panorama_BB20ADD0_A10E_5B67_41D0_F2D2F08DA950.label = A_4
album_CF79832C_C3AD_9DA4_41D8_9EDE420582E5.label = Barcode
album_CF79832C_C3AD_9DA4_41D8_9EDE420582E5_0.label = Barcode
album_C82D9BD8_C3F5_AB17_41E3_52DE294E0825.label = Bomb_Love
album_C82D9BD8_C3F5_AB17_41E3_52DE294E0825_0.label = Bomb_Love
album_CEC15129_C3F7_B736_41B9_29032CA4B7EC_0.label = Bomb_Middle_England
album_CEC15129_C3F7_B736_41B9_29032CA4B7EC.label = Bomb_Middle_England
album_CDB8EAFD_C3F7_550C_41D4_805121A34CCD.label = CND_Soldiers
album_CDB8EAFD_C3F7_550C_41D4_805121A34CCD_0.label = CND_Soldiers
album_CF4C82BB_C3D4_D847_41E5_91DCC1F24C65_0.label = Di-Faced_Tenners
album_CF4C82BB_C3D4_D847_41E5_91DCC1F24C65.label = Di-Faced_Tenners
album_CC8A2FA1_C3D4_C841_41D8_2AD7AB77194E_0.label = Festival
album_CC8A2FA1_C3D4_C841_41D8_2AD7AB77194E.label = Festival
album_CD15C57A_C3D5_B8C3_41C2_F8DBA19C6F6F.label = Flying_Copper
album_CD15C57A_C3D5_B8C3_41C2_F8DBA19C6F6F_0.label = Flying_Copper
album_CDC47540_C3DC_783C_41E2_A088406923E0.label = Gangsta_Rat
album_CDC47540_C3DC_783C_41E2_A088406923E0_0.label = Gangsta_Rat
panorama_B63ADAB5_A10D_D92B_41AE_5CBEBFD68BEB.label = Giardino
panorama_B3C52379_A0FB_CF1E_41CA_3FAF5DE2F975.label = Giardino_2
album_CD12CFF4_C3DD_C7DB_41D1_6CC143BCBC2A_0.label = Girl_with_Balloon
album_CD12CFF4_C3DD_C7DB_41D1_6CC143BCBC2A.label = Girl_with_Balloon
album_CD709150_C3DC_D8DA_41DD_7BED8AC12DAC.label = Golf_Sale
album_CD709150_C3DC_D8DA_41DD_7BED8AC12DAC_0.label = Golf_Sale
album_CC8BE5DF_C3DF_DBC7_41C6_0D42C6AF2E2E_0.label = Grannies
album_CC8BE5DF_C3DF_DBC7_41C6_0D42C6AF2E2E.label = Grannies
album_D34511C8_C3D5_D834_41E0_E8641E48ADD3_0.label = HMV
album_D30602E1_C3D4_59F4_41D0_24F36F38EED9_0.label = Happy_Choppers
album_D30602E1_C3D4_59F4_41D0_24F36F38EED9.label = Happy_Choppers
panorama_AE2D87A7_A0FA_573F_41C3_5617A3EDAB75.label = Home
album_CE67C992_C3EE_5CF9_41D8_7A6A233DF582_0.label = I_fought_the_law
album_CE67C992_C3EE_5CF9_41D8_7A6A233DF582.label = I_fought_the_law
panorama_F06580D5_A10A_C97A_41E1_B790F28A3B53.label = Ingr
album_CDE380AA_C3E2_CCC6_41E1_B10769EBDD9C_0.label = Laugh_Now
album_CDE380AA_C3E2_CCC6_41E1_B10769EBDD9C.label = Laugh_Now
album_CD974A91_C3E2_7CC3_41B9_FBFCE3861A50_0.label = Love_Is_In_The_Air
album_CD974A91_C3E2_7CC3_41B9_FBFCE3861A50.label = Love_Is_In_The_Air
album_CD9C5060_C3ED_CC40_41D5_40DCD86CF089_0.label = Love_Rat
album_CEBFC806_C3F9_E91F_41CE_64EC6BD6EF3D_0.label = Monkey_Queen
album_CEBFC806_C3F9_E91F_41CE_64EC6BD6EF3D.label = Monkey_Queen
album_D34511C8_C3D5_D834_41E0_E8641E48ADD3.label = Photo Album HMV
album_CD9C5060_C3ED_CC40_41D5_40DCD86CF089.label = Photo Album Love_Rat
album_CAA345C5_C401_BCAA_4166_110352068D73.label = Placard_Rats
album_CAA345C5_C401_BCAA_4166_110352068D73_0.label = Placard_Rats_1
album_CAA345C5_C401_BCAA_4166_110352068D73_1.label = Placard_Rats_2
album_CAA345C5_C401_BCAA_4166_110352068D73_2.label = Placard_Rats_3
album_CA04413F_C401_75D6_41E5_F6EA8EF6E081_0.label = Pulp_Fiction
album_CA04413F_C401_75D6_41E5_F6EA8EF6E081.label = Pulp_Fiction
album_CA5558CD_C400_F4BB_41E7_E152E59C229A_0.label = Queen_Vic
album_CA5558CD_C400_F4BB_41E7_E152E59C229A.label = Queen_Vic
album_CAA5244D_C407_F3B8_41DE_911DAA49E1D5_0.label = Rude_Copper
album_CAA5244D_C407_F3B8_41DE_911DAA49E1D5.label = Rude_Copper
album_CB3051AE_C400_94FB_41C1_4CB5D8F85A97.label = Sale_Ends_Today
album_CB3051AE_C400_94FB_41C1_4CB5D8F85A97_0.label = Sale_Ends_Today
album_D55BB001_C403_B3A6_41E2_13A494D84E00.label = Turf_War
album_D55BB001_C403_B3A6_41E2_13A494D84E00_0.label = Turf_War
album_D62B8FBB_C400_8CDB_419A_580E1EC5EEF9_0.label = Virgin_Mary
album_D62B8FBB_C400_8CDB_419A_580E1EC5EEF9.label = Virgin_Mary
album_CCBCC502_C3E3_D5C7_41E0_0E89D095B7C4.label = jack_jill
album_CCBCC502_C3E3_D5C7_41E0_0E89D095B7C4_0.label = jack_jill
album_C8E105A3_C403_FCEC_41E6_8A59BE070F64_0.label = napalm
album_C8E105A3_C403_FCEC_41E6_8A59BE070F64.label = napalm
## Skin
### Multiline Text
HTMLText_A28CE07B_C401_B47A_41C5_C6FCD37DCDCE.html = BARCODE
2004
silkscreen on paper
50×70 cm
ed. 313 of 600
Barcode is a work of art created by Banksy in 2004 and marketed by Pictures On Walls in the same year. The stencil first appeared, in an uncommissioned form, on the side of a house on Pembrock Road, Bristol, at an unspecified date between 1999 and 2000. The work disappeared in August 2010 during the renovation of the property but resurfaced four years later at a nearby school, where one of the teachers revealed that her husband had been one of the workers on the site. The teacher and her husband recognised the stencil, which was to be demolished, as Banksy's work and received permission from the owner of the house to take the painting away. They kept it hidden under their bed for four years until it was shown to the public. Another representation of the same stencil was exhibited during the 2002 Existencilism exhibition at the 33 1/3 gallery in Los Angeles.
BOMB LOVE
(Bomb Hugger)
2003
silkscreen on paper
70×50 cm
ed. of 600
This image has an official title and one adopted by the public: the official one is Bomb Love, however, the public has adopted it as Bomb Hugger. 750 silkscreen copies of the image were published by Pictures On Walls, exactly when demonstrations in the UK criticising its joint intervention with the US against Iraq were taking place. Against a pop pink background, a little girl is hugging a bomb like she would hug a teddy bear. The artist is talking about the war in the version provided by the rulers and the media in order to justify the attack on Iraq, that is, a war to “export democracy”. In the 2001 black book Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall, Banksy links the image to his aphorism: “A wall is a very powerful weapon, it's one of the hardest things you can hit someone with”. The image has been reproduced in various formats, it has appeared on the walls of European cities including Berlin, stencilled but also on pamphlets distributed to the public during anti-military protests. Dating back to 2000, Banksy documented some monochrome stencils of “Bomb Hugger” on public walls in East London in 2003 and later in Brighton. In the 2004 black book Cut it Out, Banksy relates bombs to hugs, writing: “Suicide bombers just need a hug”.
BOMB MIDDLE ENGLAND
2003
silkscreen on paper
33×50 cm
ed. 415 of 500
The literal translation of the title is: bombing central England. The image depicts a stereotype with old ladies playing bowls in the countryside. However, in Banksy's version the balls have been replaced by cannonballs with lit fuses. It was the period of British engagement in the war against Iraq, an action that according to Banksy, does not concern certain social classes. The aim is to criticise the British middle class - hence the word “middle” in the title – who feels immune to war, seeing it as little more than a game, highlighting the dangers of superficial middle-class values. Another meaning interprets the title as a play on words: “to bomb” is a verb used in the writing community to refer to the practice of compulsively writing one's own name called “bombing.” Bomb Middle England was printed as a silkscreen in 2004 and is documented as a monochrome stencil on some walls in Bristol. It was the subject of a dispute with Canadian cartoonist Cinders McLeod, author of the cartoon “Anarchic Granny”, in which an little old lady is about to throw a cannonball with a lit fuse, in a typical gesture when playing bowls. Banksy wrote in Wall and Piece, “The bad artists imitate. The great artists steal,” thus appropriating a phrase attributed to Picasso.
CND SOLDIERS
2005
silkscreen on paper
70×50 cm
ed. of 350
CND Soldiers is a stencil that Banksy created in 2003 near the British Parliament and which was quickly removed by the authorities. Considered his most iconic artistic statement against the war, it represents a response to Britain's involvement in the Iraq war and testifies to how London, at that time, was being hit by a major popular protest led by peace activist Brian Haw. The image can be viewed from two critical perspectives: the first emphasizes the futility of free speech, not surprisingly millions of people, including the military, joined the protest against the invasion of Iraq; the second suggests the paradoxical use of the military, used to spread “peace and democracy.” In his book Wall and Piece Banksy writes, “I like to think I have the guts to stand up anonymously in a Western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in - like peace and justice and freedom....”
DI-FACED TENNERS
2004
offset lithograph on paper
7,6×14,6 cm
In 2004 Banksy printed one million pounds in ten-pound notes, called Di-Faced Tenners. The term “tenners” means the ten-pound denomination, or “ten pounds”. The other part of the artwork's name is a play on words: the term “defaced” means “scarred” in English. This term refers to Banksy's treatment of the original banknote and the fact that the artist has replaced the Queen's image with that of Diana Spencer, also known as Lady D. From this perspective, “Di-Faced” can also be read as: “with the face of D.” We can thus read D-Faced Tenners as a ten-pound note depicting Lady D and at the same time scarred, that is, a counterfeit ten-pound note. At the top, in the centre of the banknote, we can read the words “Banksy of England” instead of “Bank of England.” This work was first presented at the Notting Hill Carnival in London where the artist threw handfuls of banknotes to the crowd (in the same year Banksy repeated the performance at the Reading Festival). Some of the banknotes were used by the public to make purchases.
FESTIVAL
(Destroy Capitalism)
2006
silkscreen on paper
56×76 cm
Ed. of 350
Festival, better known as Destroy Capitalism, is among the British artist's darkest images. In this work of art a number of individuals form a queue at a merchandising booth, a typical occurrence at outdoor music festivals such as Glastonbury. At such festivals the artist, during his Bristol years, repeatedly produced and sold counterfeit merchandise. During his collaboration with Blur for the Think Tank album cover, Banksy revealed that he had sold counterfeit t-shirts of the band at their concerts. The artist has repeatedly referred to his work as an activity whose purpose is “to market the revolution,” that is, to market the revolution and its ideals. The image, which first appeared in 2006 as a poster in the Barely Legal exhibition in Los Angeles, is a commentary on capitalism's ability to co-opt all those who seek to bring it to ruin and refers to the fact that his editions, sold for a few pounds at Pictures On Walls, have seen their value increase on the open market. The twist of fate materialised in 2013, when Walmart began selling illegitimate copies of the print on its website. Once Banksy had been informed of this, he filed a lawsuit against the American giant, which was then forced to withdraw the product.
FLYING COPPER
2003
silkscreen on paper
100×70 cm
ed. of 600
Banksy's “Flying Copper” is one of the artist's earliest iconic images, created using various techniques in an uncommissioned form in a public place. An installation of the Flying Copper was visible in the form of huge figures stencilled on cut out cardboard and hung from the ceiling, as a part of Turf War, Banksy's first major exhibition held in 2003 in a warehouse in London's East End. Some of Flying Copper's cutouts were then placed on the streets of London and Vienna and then later, in the form of an uncommissioned installation, the work reappeared in London on the front of Shoreditch Bridge. A part of this installation was removed by unknown persons and then reappeared in the 2012 documentary How to Sell a Banksy. The image shows a police officer in riot gear but his face has been replaced with an iconic smiley face. Once again we find the symbolism of the smiley in contrast with the rifle, that is, how oppression and threats can be hidden behind the face of those who should protect us, highlighting the ambiguity of power. Flying Copper restores the duality of the function of a guardian of the peace that, at the same time, can turn into a danger to peace itself, suggesting healthy scepticism towards those who administer power.
GANGSTA RAT
2004
silkscreen on paper
50×35 cm
ed. di 350
Banksy's gangster rat mimics the American ‘gangsta’ (spelt in urban slang) rappers of the 1990s, icons of hip hop culture which influenced the artist during his formative years in Bristol. Rats are among Banksy's most frequently used subjects and he writes: “They exist without permission. They are hated, hunted and persecuted. They live in quiet desperation amongst the filth. And yet they are capable of bringing entire civilisations to their knees”. The artist draws a parallel between rats and the plight of street artists and somehow warns us against the quiet multitudes thereof. Banksy's rats are often considered to have been taken from the imagery of Frenchman Blek Le Rat, another street artist who littered Paris during the 1980s with a very similar vision to that of the British artist. Banksy's Gangsta Rat is sitting next to a large portable stereo, known as a “boom-box” and typical of hip hop culture. The letters ‘P O W’ are scribbled above the rat in contemporary ‘style writing’ and are a reference to Banksy's print house, Pictures On Walls, but also to the most well-known acronym: Prisoner Of War.
GIRL WITH BALLOON
2005
silkscreen on paper
76×56 cm
ed. of 600
”Girl with Balloon” is perhaps Banksy's most popular image; voted in a 2017 survey sponsored by Samsung as the British’s most beloved work. Banksy first painted Girl with Balloon in 2004, using the stencil technique, in an uncommissioned form on the wall of a bridge in the Southbank area of London. The artist signed the work on an electrical box, in the lower right-hand corner of the piece and accompanied the image with the words, “There’s always hope.” In his book Wall and Piece, he adds, “When the time comes to leave, just walk away quietly and don’t make any fuss.” Another version of the stencil appeared in the London neighbourhood of Shoreditch, near the Liverpool Street station. The owners of the store where Banksy stencilled the artwork suggested “detaching” it from the wall to auction it off, sparking a wave of protest and the work was left alone. Ten years later, hidden behind an advertising billboard, an anonymous group removed the stencil. The work reappeared during the presentation of the exhibition Stealing Banksy?, only to be sold shortly thereafter.
GOLF SALE
2003
silkscreen on paper
35×50 cm
ed. of 600
Appearing in 2003, Golf Sale is one of Banksy's first officially published images. It was never produced as a work of art for a public place but only as a silkscreen print on paper and as a stencil for various commercial media. The work manipulates the photograph Tank Man taken by Jeff Widener in Tiananmen Square in 1989, when the photographer portrayed a young man in the act of stopping a row of army tanks that had intervened to break up a protest by Chinese students. Widener's image is regarded in the West as an iconic symbol of non-violent opposition to power. In Banksy's version, the scene is in black and white - typical of his style at the time - and the protester, in addition to his physical opposition, is pointing out that a golf equipment sale is being held nearby to the army tanks. In the black book Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall, the artist writes: “We can't do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime, we should all go shopping to console ourselves”.
GRANNIES
2004
silkscreen on paper
56×76 cm
ed. of 500
Grannies in English is the crasis of “grandmothers” and is the term by which the British affectionately call their grandmothers.
Grannies first appeared during the Barely Legal exhibition in Los Angeles in 2006 in the form of a stencil on canvas. It has never been painted in a public place and is one of the images that makes the most use of typical British humour.
Set against a pink background, it shows two friendly-looking grandmothers knitting in their armchairs. The “short circuit” is the writing on the jumpers that they are knitting, subversive phrases that represent militant slogans usually found on vandalised streets or visible in the form of tattoos. One of the grandmothers is knitting a jumper with the slogan “Punks Not Dead”. The other grandmother's jumper contains the words “Thug For Life”. Both grandmothers have a satisfied expression on their faces, as if they are pleased to be participating in a subversive culture or, as Banksy puts it, “entry-level anarchy”.
HAPPY CHOPPERS
2003
silkscreen on paper
70×50 cm
ed. of 600
Happy Choppers first appeared in 2002 as a work of street art in central London, near Whitecross Street Market. Since then, Banksy has revisited the helicopter motif many times, making it an iconic component of his repertoire. Between 2002 and 2003, he reproduced the image in a number of forms and techniques: from limited edition silkscreens, to paintings, to stencils on canvas or integrated in styled paintings. The silkscreen artwork was first offered for sale for a few pounds at the Santa's Ghetto exhibition, a Christmas group which Banksy organised with other artists in the early 2000s. The work depicts a squadron of attack helicopters with a pink bow adorning its rotor. The term ‘chopper’ comes from the slang expression used by Americans to describe assault helicopters used during the Korean War. The image proposes the anti-militarism theme dear to the artist in the form of an aesthetic paradox. In his book Wall and Piece, Banksy writes: “The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people who break the rules, but by people who follow the rules. It is the people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages.”
HMV
(His Master Voice)
2003
silkscreen on paper
35×50 cm
ed. of 600
“His Master's Voice” is among Banksy's earliest elaborate images, appearing in Bristol as stencils of various sizes and colours, in a public place in an uncommissioned form and later edited as silkscreen prints.
By manipulating it, HMV quotes the logo of the British record company founded in 1920 following the sales of the wind-up gramophone.
The original logo showed a dog sitting in front of a gramophone speaker used to listen to its master's voice. Banksy sides with the dog who, exhausted, deals with the situation with a bazooka.
The humorous vein opens up the discussion for various levels of interpretation: on the one hand, it suggests how to deal with obsolete ways of thinking, on the other hand, it emphasizes the possible outcome of the tension caused by the ageing of the Western population and finally, it seems to suggest how to behave when faced with anyone who calls himself a master.
I FOUGHT THE LAW
2004
silkscreen on paper
70×70 cm
ed. of 500
The main scene comes from a video documenting the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan on 30 March 1981, carried out by John Hinkley outside the Washington Hilton Hotel. This mentally ill man, convinced that the actress Jodie Foster would have loved his extreme gesture, fired five shots without casualties. However, in Banksy's interpretation, Hinkley's hand is not extended towards a gun but towards a paintbrush as he is pinned down for having written “I fought the law and I won.” The words are actually the title of a 1958 Sonny Curtis song and Banksy quotes the version performed by the Clash in 1979. Through the typical compositional trait of the artist, obtained by constructing new meanings from unusual relationships amongst references of a popular nature, the themes explored are linked to works of art in which the artist sees freedom of expression as a powerful weapon. Among these, the most explicit is Choose Your Weapon, which appeared in 2010 in South London, where a man with a hoodie and a masked face is walking a Keith Haring style dog on a leash. He thus emphasizes the cultural mix of which the artist's DNA is made up.
JACK & JILL
(Police Kids)
2005
silkscreen on paper
50×70 cm
ed. of 200
Banksy often addresses childhood issues. In his book Wall and Piece he writes, “A lot of parents will do anything for their kids, except let them be themselves.” It is necessary to build on this thought in order to understand the meaning of an image in which two children joyfully jump in what seems to be very normal water. The appearance of a carefree childhood is contradicted by what the two kids are wearing: bulletproof vests with the word “Police” written on them. Jack & Jill aims to work on the perception of the paradox that puts a strain on the alleged innocence of childhood, the concerns of parents and the tendency towards a “militaristic” society that exceeds in family protection. Bulletproof vests are often used by Banksy: in one of his versions of the peace dove painted in Palestine in 2007, the Armored Dove of Peace, the bird is wearing a bulletproof vest and so are some of the main characters in the Family Target series.
LAUGH NOW
2003
silkscreen on paper
70×48,5 cm
ed. of 450
Laugh Now: “Laugh now, but one day we’ll be in charge”, is written on the sign on the monkey that first appeared in 2002, commissioned by a nightclub in Brighton. Since then the artist has replicated the work countless times in the form of uncommissioned street art, an installation, silkscreen and stencil on canvas. In its silkscreen form it was first exhibited in the 2002 Existencilism exhibition at the 33 1/3 gallery in Los Angeles. Monkeys are a recurring subject in Banksy's imagery. The artist maintains that, since the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species (1859), humans have gone to great lengths to ridicule their closest relatives. Banksy's monkey testifies to mankind's arrogance towards other living species, suggesting a parallel with a human’s capacity to create art. Graffiti, not surprisingly, has also been ridiculed in derogatory ways. Banksy, however, maintains that street art is one of the most powerful means of artistic expression in contemporary discourse. Banksy argues: “The people who truly deface our neighbourhoods are the companies that scrawl giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff”.
LOVE IS IN THE AIR
(Flower Thrower)
2003
silkscreen on paper
50×70 cm
ed. of 500
Love Is In The Air, also known as the Flower Thrower, is one of Banksy's founding figures. The first documented Flower Thrower appeared on a canvas for sale at Banksy's flat in Easton in 1998, as part of a self-organised exhibition. Later in 2003, it appeared again as an uncommissioned stencil in Jerusalem on the wall of a car dealership on Ash Salon Street, near Bethlehem. A wall that, according to the artist, “[...] basically turns Palestine into the world's largest outdoor prison”. In the same year, he produced the edition shown here on a red background. Love Is In The Air quotes and manipulates the imagery of activists during the university uprisings that swept across the United States and Great Britain during the Vietnam era and takes its title from a famous song, released in 1977, by Australian singer John Paul Young. Banksy transfigures the aesthetics and reverses the violent outcome of the young militant by placing a rhetorical figure evoking peace and beauty in his hand: the bouquet of flowers. In his book Wall and Piece, the artist comments on the work of art as follows: “The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people who break the rules but by people who follow the rules”.
LOVE RAT
2004
silkscreen on paper
50×35 cm
ed. of 600
Rats are among Banksy's most depicted subjects and he says: “They exist without permission. They are hated, hunted and persecuted. They live in quiet desperation amongst the filth. And yet they are capable of bringing entire civilisations to their knees”. The artist draws a parallel between rats and the plight of street artists and warns us against the quiet but ambiguous multitudes thereof. Banksy's rats are often considered to have been taken from the imagery of Frenchman Blek Le Rat, another street artist who littered Paris during the 1980s with a similar vision to that of the British artist. Banksy's Love Rat is depicted with a large paintbrush in his hand as he has finished tracing the outline of a red heart on an invisible wall. The symbolism suggests that street art - no matter how insignificant it may seem at first - is worthy of love and that these small contributions can have a bright impact on the surrounding community.
MONKEY QUEEN
2003
silkscreen on paper
50×35 cm
ed. of 600
Monkey Queen, is a work of art produced on silkscreen in 2004 in an edition of 750 exemplars sold during the Turf War exhibition, held in a warehouse on Kingsland Road in East London in the summer of 2003. As part of the exhibition, a stencil painting illustrated the image of Queen Elizabeth II with a monkey face, framed in an oval against the background of the British flag. In the silkscreen-printed version Banksy, while echoing the colours of the British flag, modifies the background into the shape of a shooting target. The Monkey Queen first appeared as a stencil painted on the central window of the London club Chill Out Zone where the local authorities demanded its removal for Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee, the 50th anniversary of her coronation. Along with mice, monkeys are one of the animals the artist uses most often to construct his meanings and are often linked to power. A famous image by Banksy, in fact, depicts the British Parliament as entirely populated by monkeys. Banksy commented on his work as follows: “The highest position in British society is not a reward for talent or hard work, but simply handed out with the accident of birth... God Save The Queen”, emphasising how the task of making decisions on behalf of a people is not based on effort, but on chance. It should be noted that Banksy himself often wears a monkey mask in his public portraits.
NAPALM
Can’t beat that feeling
2004
silkscreen on paper
56×76 cm
ed. of 500
This work of art is a post-production of a famous photograph of the Vietnam War, taken on 8 June 1972 by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Nick Ut.
The escape from the city of Tr ng Bàng of the young Phan Thi Kim Phuc (9 years old at the time), burnt by napalm after a bombing by the American army, is placed in the centre of the frame in the original photograph.
Phuc is still alive today and was the focus of a book entitled The Girl in the Picture, published in 1996 by Denise Chong. The other title which the image is known for, Can't Beat That Feeling, refers to a slogan that Coca Cola used for an advertising campaign in the 1990s.
Banksy investigates the relationship between perception and reality, pivoting on paradox and contradiction. In his version, the girl is close to two icons of American culture, Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald. Considered among Banksy's most disturbing images, the artist shows how America perceives itself and how it is perceived by other cultures. The only version on canvas of the piece is owned by Damien Hirst.
PLACARD RATS
Because I’m Worthless
Welcome To Hell
Get Out While You Can
2004
silkscreen on paper
50×35 cm
ed. of 175
ed. of 175
ed. of 175
Banksy draws a parallel between rodents and the plight of street artists and borrows the image of rats from the French street artist Blek Le Rat, who littered Paris with them in the 1980s.
This piece is part of a series known as Placard Rats that has appeared countless times, especially in London, in the form of uncommissioned street art. The Placard Rats series shows an indignant-looking rat holding up a classic rally sign and in this case the words “Because I'm Worthless” appear, while on others, words such as “Get Out While You Can” or “Welcome to Hell” appear. Although the rat is wearing a necklace with a symbol of peace, he seems to be fighting against his marginalised condition.
PULP FICTION
2004
silkscreen on paper
50×70 cm
ed. 313 of 600
Pulp Fiction pays homage to the characters of the film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The artwork shows the protagonists Vincent and Jules side by side, ready to shoot bananas instead of guns. Just as Tarantino defuses the violent potential of his films by making them paroxysmal, Banksy translates the paradox into a static code, replacing the guns with harmless bananas. The image first appeared as street art on a wall in London's Old Street in 2002. In 2007, the municipal Transport for London covered up the artwork, stating that it conveyed a decaying image of the neighbourhood. Banksy returned to place the work on the same wall, in turn covering up Transport for London's image. This time, however, the protagonists were wearing banana costumes and armed them with real guns. The artist was most likely familiar with Monty Python's Flying Circus, which produced the demented comedy Self Defence Against Fresh Fruit in 1969, a parody in which acts of violence are committed with bananas, apples and oranges.
Other hypotheses are that Banksy took inspiration from the cover of The Velvet Underground's 1967 album designed by Andy Warhol or that he returned to the recurring theme in his work: the association of bananas with monkeys.
QUEEN VIC
2003
silkscreen on paper
70×48,5 cm
ed. of 450
Queen Vic (Queen Victoria) is a piece from 2003, one of the first images printed by Pictures On Walls, Banksy's print house that opened its doors at 46 Commercial Road in London in 2003. The artist is known for his satire towards power: the image depicts Queen Victoria as a homosexual, engaged in the act known as “queening”. Queen Victoria is said to have declared it impossible for women to be gay, effectively passing laws against homosexuality. The image, which suggests the hypocrisy hidden behind the administration of power, comes from a stencil placed on the shutters of a shop between St. Mark's Road and Brenner Street in Bristol in 2002. Banksy writes: “Many thought a picture of Queen Victoria getting licked out was a bit too rude to paint randomly around a city. So I did quite a few and they got buffed pretty quickly. But one of them was on the shutters of a shop that sells total crap seven days a week. They don’t shut until nine o’ clock at night and only then do the shutters come down. This has given the stencil a kind of adult-only rating as the work is only visible after nine o'clock”. The image was exhibited as a painting for the first time in 2003 in a group exhibition in New York at the Vanina Holasek Gallery.
RUDE COPPER
silkscreen on paper
57×41 cm
ed. of 250
Rude Copper is the first silkscreen print Banksy officially produced and distributed for the market. It was published by the artist in 2002 as a ‘multiple’, a silkscreen edition of 250 copies, including 50 signed and numbered and 200 numbered. The official series includes another 30 copies.
The police officer is engaged here in an explicit ‘Fuck You’ towards the viewer. In order to place his uncommissioned works of art in public places, Banksy wages a challenge against the local authorities of the territory, personified in British culture by the Bobby, a typical policeman who in urban slang is referred to as a “Copper”. The artist will encounter several of them and provide us with numerous accounts from which the founding principle of street art emerges: to do something beautiful, you don't have to ask for permission. Banksy offers various interpretations that contradict each other: the image presents a law enforcement officer that, borrowing common language, shows the policeman as “one of us”, while at the same time suggesting a law enforcement officer that, transcending his mandate, leads others not to trust him and to assume a more judgemental sense.
SALE ENDS TODAY
2006
silkscreen on paper
56×76 cm
ed. of 500
Sale Ends Today is one of Banksy's lesser-known images where his sarcasm is most evident. The composition shows stylised black-and-white figures as samples from biblical scenes from 16th- and 17th-century paintings, with a group of women in despair before the Saviour's passion. In Banksy's version, the biblical Saviour is not a person, but a banal red sign announcing the end of the sales, that is, the sale of goods at discounted prices. This, according to Banksy, is the real source of despair. The image refers to the repercussions on the collective behaviour of the hegemony of a consumer culture produced by capitalism, inviting us to reflect on the relationship between faith, religion and money, emphasizing how meaning, for centuries provided by religion, is now provided by money. The image has never been the subject of an uncommissioned public exhibition, but it first appeared in public in the form of a silkscreen print. A large version on canvas was auctioned at Sotheby's, London, in 2008.
TURF WAR
2003
silkscreen on paper
56×41 cm
ed. of 600
The image was produced by Banksy in 2003 as part of the Turf War exhibition, Banksy's first major exhibition in London, held in a warehouse on Kingsland Road. The exhibition opened on 18 July and was due to end a few days later on 24 July. However, the police closed it down two days after its opening because live animals were used in the exhibition itself. The punk-inspired work depicts Leonard Spencer-Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War, imagined by the artist as a real punk rocker. Banksy adorned Churchill's bald head with a crest of bright green hair making him resemble a Mohican, while referring also to a grassy tract. Indeed, to decode Turf War, it is necessary to understand the double pun referred to in the title. Turf is the Anglo-Saxon term for a grassy sod, but the phrase ‘turf war’ is used in everyday language to refer to a gang war in an urban setting. Linked to the theme of war, the image with its title seems to mean that for the artist, the essence of war is nothing more than a dispute between two contenders over a piece of land.
VIRGIN MARY
(Toxic Mary)
2003
silkscreen on paper
76×56 cm
ed. di 600
The Virgin Mary is also known as Toxic Mary because of the poison symbol on the baby bottle. According to some, the image is a harsh criticism of the role of Religion in History; according to others, it is a criticism of the way we are educating our children. The work depicts a Madonna and Child in a classic Renaissance style. Reworked by Banksy, the image features drippings that bear a peculiar element in street art. It is a typically popular image that Banksy subjects to a détournement. It involves a process of exploiting images already crystallised in memory, manipulating them and placing elements that undermine their acquired meaning. The most famous example of the use of this artistic technique is Marcel Duchamp's Mona Lisa with a moustache. Instead the term “détournement” was introduced by the Situationist philosopher Guy Debord, who interpreted it as follows: “Détournement is the integration of present or past artistic productions into a superior construction of a milieu”. Debord believes that plagiarism is an operation to replace a false idea with a true one, a thought that appears integral to Banksy's modus operandi. The artwork was first presented in 2003 as a stencil painting on canvas during the Turf War exhibition.
BARCODE
2004
silkscreen on paper
50×70 cm
ed. 313 of 600
Barcode is a work of art created by Banksy in 2004 and marketed by Pictures On Walls in the same year. The stencil first appeared, in an uncommissioned form, on the side of a house on Pembrock Road, Bristol, at an unspecified date between 1999 and 2000. The work disappeared in August 2010 during the renovation of the property but resurfaced four years later at a nearby school, where one of the teachers revealed that her husband had been one of the workers on the site. The teacher and her husband recognised the stencil, which was to be demolished, as Banksy's work and received permission from the owner of the house to take the painting away. They kept it hidden under their bed for four years until it was shown to the public. Another representation of the same stencil was exhibited during the 2002 Existencilism exhibition at the 33 1/3 gallery in Los Angeles.
BOMB LOVE
(Bomb Hugger)
2003
silkscreen on paper
70×50 cm
ed. of 600
This image has an official title and one adopted by the public: the official one is Bomb Love, however, the public has adopted it as Bomb Hugger. 750 silkscreen copies of the image were published by Pictures On Walls, exactly when demonstrations in the UK criticising its joint intervention with the US against Iraq were taking place. Against a pop pink background, a little girl is hugging a bomb like she would hug a teddy bear. The artist is talking about the war in the version provided by the rulers and the media in order to justify the attack on Iraq, that is, a war to “export democracy”. In the 2001 black book Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall, Banksy links the image to his aphorism: “A wall is a very powerful weapon, it's one of the hardest things you can hit someone with”. The image has been reproduced in various formats, it has appeared on the walls of European cities including Berlin, stencilled but also on pamphlets distributed to the public during anti-military protests. Dating back to 2000, Banksy documented some monochrome stencils of “Bomb Hugger” on public walls in East London in 2003 and later in Brighton. In the 2004 black book Cut it Out, Banksy relates bombs to hugs, writing: “Suicide bombers just need a hug”.
BOMB MIDDLE ENGLAND
2003
silkscreen on paper
33×50 cm
ed. 415 of 500
The literal translation of the title is: bombing central England. The image depicts a stereotype with old ladies playing bowls in the countryside. However, in Banksy's version the balls have been replaced by cannonballs with lit fuses. It was the period of British engagement in the war against Iraq, an action that according to Banksy, does not concern certain social classes. The aim is to criticise the British middle class - hence the word “middle” in the title – who feels immune to war, seeing it as little more than a game, highlighting the dangers of superficial middle-class values. Another meaning interprets the title as a play on words: “to bomb” is a verb used in the writing community to refer to the practice of compulsively writing one's own name called “bombing.” Bomb Middle England was printed as a silkscreen in 2004 and is documented as a monochrome stencil on some walls in Bristol. It was the subject of a dispute with Canadian cartoonist Cinders McLeod, author of the cartoon “Anarchic Granny”, in which an little old lady is about to throw a cannonball with a lit fuse, in a typical gesture when playing bowls. Banksy wrote in Wall and Piece, “The bad artists imitate. The great artists steal,” thus appropriating a phrase attributed to Picasso.
CND SOLDIERS
2005
silkscreen on paper
70×50 cm
ed. of 350
CND Soldiers is a stencil that Banksy created in 2003 near the British Parliament and which was quickly removed by the authorities. Considered his most iconic artistic statement against the war, it represents a response to Britain's involvement in the Iraq war and testifies to how London, at that time, was being hit by a major popular protest led by peace activist Brian Haw. The image can be viewed from two critical perspectives: the first emphasizes the futility of free speech, not surprisingly millions of people, including the military, joined the protest against the invasion of Iraq; the second suggests the paradoxical use of the military, used to spread “peace and democracy.” In his book Wall and Piece Banksy writes, “I like to think I have the guts to stand up anonymously in a Western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in - like peace and justice and freedom....”
DI-FACED TENNERS
2004
offset lithograph on paper
7,6×14,6 cm
In 2004 Banksy printed one million pounds in ten-pound notes, called Di-Faced Tenners. The term “tenners” means the ten-pound denomination, or “ten pounds”. The other part of the artwork's name is a play on words: the term “defaced” means “scarred” in English. This term refers to Banksy's treatment of the original banknote and the fact that the artist has replaced the Queen's image with that of Diana Spencer, also known as Lady D. From this perspective, “Di-Faced” can also be read as: “with the face of D.” We can thus read D-Faced Tenners as a ten-pound note depicting Lady D and at the same time scarred, that is, a counterfeit ten-pound note. At the top, in the centre of the banknote, we can read the words “Banksy of England” instead of “Bank of England.” This work was first presented at the Notting Hill Carnival in London where the artist threw handfuls of banknotes to the crowd (in the same year Banksy repeated the performance at the Reading Festival). Some of the banknotes were used by the public to make purchases.
FESTIVAL
(Destroy Capitalism)
2006
silkscreen on paper
56×76 cm
Ed. of 350
Festival, better known as Destroy Capitalism, is among the British artist's darkest images. In this work of art a number of individuals form a queue at a merchandising booth, a typical occurrence at outdoor music festivals such as Glastonbury. At such festivals the artist, during his Bristol years, repeatedly produced and sold counterfeit merchandise. During his collaboration with Blur for the Think Tank album cover, Banksy revealed that he had sold counterfeit t-shirts of the band at their concerts. The artist has repeatedly referred to his work as an activity whose purpose is “to market the revolution,” that is, to market the revolution and its ideals. The image, which first appeared in 2006 as a poster in the Barely Legal exhibition in Los Angeles, is a commentary on capitalism's ability to co-opt all those who seek to bring it to ruin and refers to the fact that his editions, sold for a few pounds at Pictures On Walls, have seen their value increase on the open market. The twist of fate materialised in 2013, when Walmart began selling illegitimate copies of the print on its website. Once Banksy had been informed of this, he filed a lawsuit against the American giant, which was then forced to withdraw the product.
FLYING COPPER
2003
silkscreen on paper
100×70 cm
ed. of 600
Banksy's “Flying Copper” is one of the artist's earliest iconic images, created using various techniques in an uncommissioned form in a public place. An installation of the Flying Copper was visible in the form of huge figures stencilled on cut out cardboard and hung from the ceiling, as a part of Turf War, Banksy's first major exhibition held in 2003 in a warehouse in London's East End. Some of Flying Copper's cutouts were then placed on the streets of London and Vienna and then later, in the form of an uncommissioned installation, the work reappeared in London on the front of Shoreditch Bridge. A part of this installation was removed by unknown persons and then reappeared in the 2012 documentary How to Sell a Banksy. The image shows a police officer in riot gear but his face has been replaced with an iconic smiley face. Once again we find the symbolism of the smiley in contrast with the rifle, that is, how oppression and threats can be hidden behind the face of those who should protect us, highlighting the ambiguity of power. Flying Copper restores the duality of the function of a guardian of the peace that, at the same time, can turn into a danger to peace itself, suggesting healthy scepticism towards those who administer power.
GANGSTA RAT
2004
silkscreen on paper
50×35 cm
ed. of 350
Banksy's gangster rat mimics the American ‘gangsta’ (spelt in urban slang) rappers of the 1990s, icons of hip hop culture which influenced the artist during his formative years in Bristol. Rats are among Banksy's most frequently used subjects and he writes: “They exist without permission. They are hated, hunted and persecuted. They live in quiet desperation amongst the filth. And yet they are capable of bringing entire civilisations to their knees”. The artist draws a parallel between rats and the plight of street artists and somehow warns us against the quiet multitudes thereof. Banksy's rats are often considered to have been taken from the imagery of Frenchman Blek Le Rat, another street artist who littered Paris during the 1980s with a very similar vision to that of the British artist. Banksy's Gangsta Rat is sitting next to a large portable stereo, known as a “boom-box” and typical of hip hop culture. The letters ‘P O W’ are scribbled above the rat in contemporary ‘style writing’ and are a reference to Banksy's print house, Pictures On Walls, but also to the most well-known acronym: Prisoner Of War.
GIRL WITH BALLOON
2005
silkscreen on paper
76×56 cm
ed. of 600
”Girl with Balloon” is perhaps Banksy's most popular image; voted in a 2017 survey sponsored by Samsung as the British’s most beloved work. Banksy first painted Girl with Balloon in 2004, using the stencil technique, in an uncommissioned form on the wall of a bridge in the Southbank area of London. The artist signed the work on an electrical box, in the lower right-hand corner of the piece and accompanied the image with the words, “There’s always hope.” In his book Wall and Piece, he adds, “When the time comes to leave, just walk away quietly and don’t make any fuss.” Another version of the stencil appeared in the London neighbourhood of Shoreditch, near the Liverpool Street station. The owners of the store where Banksy stencilled the artwork suggested “detaching” it from the wall to auction it off, sparking a wave of protest and the work was left alone. Ten years later, hidden behind an advertising billboard, an anonymous group removed the stencil. The work reappeared during the presentation of the exhibition Stealing Banksy?, only to be sold shortly thereafter.
GOLF SALE
2003
silkscreen on paper
35×50 cm
ed. of 600
Appearing in 2003, Golf Sale is one of Banksy's first officially published images. It was never produced as a work of art for a public place but only as a silkscreen print on paper and as a stencil for various commercial media. The work manipulates the photograph Tank Man taken by Jeff Widener in Tiananmen Square in 1989, when the photographer portrayed a young man in the act of stopping a row of army tanks that had intervened to break up a protest by Chinese students. Widener's image is regarded in the West as an iconic symbol of non-violent opposition to power. In Banksy's version, the scene is in black and white - typical of his style at the time - and the protester, in addition to his physical opposition, is pointing out that a golf equipment sale is being held nearby to the army tanks. In the black book Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall, the artist writes: “We can't do anything to change the world until capitalism crumbles. In the meantime, we should all go shopping to console ourselves”.
GRANNIES
2004
silkscreen on paper
56×76 cm
ed. of 500
Grannies in English is the crasis of “grandmothers” and is the term by which the British affectionately call their grandmothers.
Grannies first appeared during the Barely Legal exhibition in Los Angeles in 2006 in the form of a stencil on canvas. It has never been painted in a public place and is one of the images that makes the most use of typical British humour.
Set against a pink background, it shows two friendly-looking grandmothers knitting in their armchairs. The “short circuit” is the writing on the jumpers that they are knitting, subversive phrases that represent militant slogans usually found on vandalised streets or visible in the form of tattoos. One of the grandmothers is knitting a jumper with the slogan “Punks Not Dead”. The other grandmother's jumper contains the words “Thug For Life”. Both grandmothers have a satisfied expression on their faces, as if they are pleased to be participating in a subversive culture or, as Banksy puts it, “entry-level anarchy”.
HAPPY CHOPPERS
2003
silkscreen on paper
70×50 cm
ed. of 600
Happy Choppers first appeared in 2002 as a work of street art in central London, near Whitecross Street Market. Since then, Banksy has revisited the helicopter motif many times, making it an iconic component of his repertoire. Between 2002 and 2003, he reproduced the image in a number of forms and techniques: from limited edition silkscreens, to paintings, to stencils on canvas or integrated in styled paintings. The silkscreen artwork was first offered for sale for a few pounds at the Santa's Ghetto exhibition, a Christmas group which Banksy organised with other artists in the early 2000s. The work depicts a squadron of attack helicopters with a pink bow adorning its rotor. The term ‘chopper’ comes from the slang expression used by Americans to describe assault helicopters used during the Korean War. The image proposes the anti-militarism theme dear to the artist in the form of an aesthetic paradox. In his book Wall and Piece, Banksy writes: “The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people who break the rules, but by people who follow the rules. It is the people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages.”
HMV
(His Master Voice)
2003
silkscreen on paper
35×50 cm
ed. of 600
“His Master's Voice” is among Banksy's earliest elaborate images, appearing in Bristol as stencils of various sizes and colours, in a public place in an uncommissioned form and later edited as silkscreen prints.
By manipulating it, HMV quotes the logo of the British record company founded in 1920 following the sales of the wind-up gramophone.
The original logo showed a dog sitting in front of a gramophone speaker used to listen to its master's voice. Banksy sides with the dog who, exhausted, deals with the situation with a bazooka.
The humorous vein opens up the discussion for various levels of interpretation: on the one hand, it suggests how to deal with obsolete ways of thinking, on the other hand, it emphasizes the possible outcome of the tension caused by the ageing of the Western population and finally, it seems to suggest how to behave when faced with anyone who calls himself a master.
I FOUGHT THE LAW
2004
silkscreen on paper
70×70 cm
ed. of 500
The main scene comes from a video documenting the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan on 30 March 1981, carried out by John Hinkley outside the Washington Hilton Hotel. This mentally ill man, convinced that the actress Jodie Foster would have loved his extreme gesture, fired five shots without casualties. However, in Banksy's interpretation, Hinkley's hand is not extended towards a gun but towards a paintbrush as he is pinned down for having written “I fought the law and I won.” The words are actually the title of a 1958 Sonny Curtis song and Banksy quotes the version performed by the Clash in 1979. Through the typical compositional trait of the artist, obtained by constructing new meanings from unusual relationships amongst references of a popular nature, the themes explored are linked to works of art in which the artist sees freedom of expression as a powerful weapon. Among these, the most explicit is Choose Your Weapon, which appeared in 2010 in South London, where a man with a hoodie and a masked face is walking a Keith Haring style dog on a leash. He thus emphasizes the cultural mix of which the artist's DNA is made up.
JACK & JILL
(Police Kids)
2005
silkscreen on paper
50×70 cm
ed. of 200
Banksy often addresses childhood issues. In his book Wall and Piece he writes, “A lot of parents will do anything for their kids, except let them be themselves.” It is necessary to build on this thought in order to understand the meaning of an image in which two children joyfully jump in what seems to be very normal water. The appearance of a carefree childhood is contradicted by what the two kids are wearing: bulletproof vests with the word “Police” written on them. Jack & Jill aims to work on the perception of the paradox that puts a strain on the alleged innocence of childhood, the concerns of parents and the tendency towards a “militaristic” society that exceeds in family protection. Bulletproof vests are often used by Banksy: in one of his versions of the peace dove painted in Palestine in 2007, the Armored Dove of Peace, the bird is wearing a bulletproof vest and so are some of the main characters in the Family Target series.
LAUGH NOW
2003
silkscreen on paper
70×48,5 cm
ed. of 450
Laugh Now: “Laugh now, but one day we’ll be in charge”, is written on the sign on the monkey that first appeared in 2002, commissioned by a nightclub in Brighton. Since then the artist has replicated the work countless times in the form of uncommissioned street art, an installation, silkscreen and stencil on canvas. In its silkscreen form it was first exhibited in the 2002 Existencilism exhibition at the 33 1/3 gallery in Los Angeles. Monkeys are a recurring subject in Banksy's imagery. The artist maintains that, since the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species (1859), humans have gone to great lengths to ridicule their closest relatives. Banksy's monkey testifies to mankind's arrogance towards other living species, suggesting a parallel with a human’s capacity to create art. Graffiti, not surprisingly, has also been ridiculed in derogatory ways. Banksy, however, maintains that street art is one of the most powerful means of artistic expression in contemporary discourse. Banksy argues: “The people who truly deface our neighbourhoods are the companies that scrawl giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff”.
LOVE IS IN THE AIR
(Flower Thrower)
2003
silkscreen on paper
50×70 cm
ed. of 500
Love Is In The Air, also known as the Flower Thrower, is one of Banksy's founding figures. The first documented Flower Thrower appeared on a canvas for sale at Banksy's flat in Easton in 1998, as part of a self-organised exhibition. Later in 2003, it appeared again as an uncommissioned stencil in Jerusalem on the wall of a car dealership on Ash Salon Street, near Bethlehem. A wall that, according to the artist, “[...] basically turns Palestine into the world's largest outdoor prison”. In the same year, he produced the edition shown here on a red background. Love Is In The Air quotes and manipulates the imagery of activists during the university uprisings that swept across the United States and Great Britain during the Vietnam era and takes its title from a famous song, released in 1977, by Australian singer John Paul Young. Banksy transfigures the aesthetics and reverses the violent outcome of the young militant by placing a rhetorical figure evoking peace and beauty in his hand: the bouquet of flowers. In his book Wall and Piece, the artist comments on the work of art as follows: “The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people who break the rules but by people who follow the rules”.
LOVE RAT
2004
silkscreen on paper
50×35 cm
ed. of 600
Rats are among Banksy's most depicted subjects and he says: “They exist without permission. They are hated, hunted and persecuted. They live in quiet desperation amongst the filth. And yet they are capable of bringing entire civilisations to their knees”. The artist draws a parallel between rats and the plight of street artists and warns us against the quiet but ambiguous multitudes thereof. Banksy's rats are often considered to have been taken from the imagery of Frenchman Blek Le Rat, another street artist who littered Paris during the 1980s with a similar vision to that of the British artist. Banksy's Love Rat is depicted with a large paintbrush in his hand as he has finished tracing the outline of a red heart on an invisible wall. The symbolism suggests that street art - no matter how insignificant it may seem at first - is worthy of love and that these small contributions can have a bright impact on the surrounding community.
MONKEY QUEEN
2003
silkscreen on paper
50×35 cm
ed. of 600
Monkey Queen, is a work of art produced on silkscreen in 2004 in an edition of 750 exemplars sold during the Turf War exhibition, held in a warehouse on Kingsland Road in East London in the summer of 2003. As part of the exhibition, a stencil painting illustrated the image of Queen Elizabeth II with a monkey face, framed in an oval against the background of the British flag. In the silkscreen-printed version Banksy, while echoing the colours of the British flag, modifies the background into the shape of a shooting target. The Monkey Queen first appeared as a stencil painted on the central window of the London club Chill Out Zone where the local authorities demanded its removal for Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee, the 50th anniversary of her coronation. Along with mice, monkeys are one of the animals the artist uses most often to construct his meanings and are often linked to power. A famous image by Banksy, in fact, depicts the British Parliament as entirely populated by monkeys. Banksy commented on his work as follows: “The highest position in British society is not a reward for talent or hard work, but simply handed out with the accident of birth... God Save The Queen”, emphasising how the task of making decisions on behalf of a people is not based on effort, but on chance. It should be noted that Banksy himself often wears a monkey mask in his public portraits.
NAPALM
Can’t beat that feeling
2004
silkscreen on paper
56×76 cm
ed. of 500
This work of art is a post-production of a famous photograph of the Vietnam War, taken on 8 June 1972 by Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Nick Ut.
The escape from the city of Tr ng Bàng of the young Phan Thi Kim Phuc (9 years old at the time), burnt by napalm after a bombing by the American army, is placed in the centre of the frame in the original photograph.
Phuc is still alive today and was the focus of a book entitled The Girl in the Picture, published in 1996 by Denise Chong. The other title which the image is known for, Can't Beat That Feeling, refers to a slogan that Coca Cola used for an advertising campaign in the 1990s.
Banksy investigates the relationship between perception and reality, pivoting on paradox and contradiction. In his version, the girl is close to two icons of American culture, Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald. Considered among Banksy's most disturbing images, the artist shows how America perceives itself and how it is perceived by other cultures. The only version on canvas of the piece is owned by Damien Hirst.
PLACARD RATS
Because I’m Worthless
Welcome To Hell
Get Out While You Can
2004
silkscreen on paper
50×35 cm
ed. of 175
ed. of 175
ed. of 175
Banksy draws a parallel between rodents and the plight of street artists and borrows the image of rats from the French street artist Blek Le Rat, who littered Paris with them in the 1980s.
This piece is part of a series known as Placard Rats that has appeared countless times, especially in London, in the form of uncommissioned street art. The Placard Rats series shows an indignant-looking rat holding up a classic rally sign and in this case the words “Because I'm Worthless” appear, while on others, words such as “Get Out While You Can” or “Welcome to Hell” appear. Although the rat is wearing a necklace with a symbol of peace, he seems to be fighting against his marginalised condition.
PULP FICTION
2004
silkscreen on paper
50×70 cm
ed. 313 of 600
Pulp Fiction pays homage to the characters of the film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The artwork shows the protagonists Vincent and Jules side by side, ready to shoot bananas instead of guns. Just as Tarantino defuses the violent potential of his films by making them paroxysmal, Banksy translates the paradox into a static code, replacing the guns with harmless bananas. The image first appeared as street art on a wall in London's Old Street in 2002. In 2007, the municipal Transport for London covered up the artwork, stating that it conveyed a decaying image of the neighbourhood. Banksy returned to place the work on the same wall, in turn covering up Transport for London's image. This time, however, the protagonists were wearing banana costumes and armed them with real guns. The artist was most likely familiar with Monty Python's Flying Circus, which produced the demented comedy Self Defence Against Fresh Fruit in 1969, a parody in which acts of violence are committed with bananas, apples and oranges.
Other hypotheses are that Banksy took inspiration from the cover of The Velvet Underground's 1967 album designed by Andy Warhol or that he returned to the recurring theme in his work: the association of bananas with monkeys.
QUEEN VIC
2003
silkscreen on paper
70×48,5 cm
ed. of 450
Queen Vic (Queen Victoria) is a piece from 2003, one of the first images printed by Pictures On Walls, Banksy's print house that opened its doors at 46 Commercial Road in London in 2003. The artist is known for his satire towards power: the image depicts Queen Victoria as a homosexual, engaged in the act known as “queening”. Queen Victoria is said to have declared it impossible for women to be gay, effectively passing laws against homosexuality. The image, which suggests the hypocrisy hidden behind the administration of power, comes from a stencil placed on the shutters of a shop between St. Mark's Road and Brenner Street in Bristol in 2002. Banksy writes: “Many thought a picture of Queen Victoria getting licked out was a bit too rude to paint randomly around a city. So I did quite a few and they got buffed pretty quickly. But one of them was on the shutters of a shop that sells total crap seven days a week. They don’t shut until nine o’ clock at night and only then do the shutters come down. This has given the stencil a kind of adult-only rating as the work is only visible after nine o'clock”. The image was exhibited as a painting for the first time in 2003 in a group exhibition in New York at the Vanina Holasek Gallery.
RUDE COPPER
silkscreen on paper
57×41 cm
ed. of 250
Rude Copper is the first silkscreen print Banksy officially produced and distributed for the market. It was published by the artist in 2002 as a ‘multiple’, a silkscreen edition of 250 copies, including 50 signed and numbered and 200 numbered. The official series includes another 30 copies.
The police officer is engaged here in an explicit ‘Fuck You’ towards the viewer. In order to place his uncommissioned works of art in public places, Banksy wages a challenge against the local authorities of the territory, personified in British culture by the Bobby, a typical policeman who in urban slang is referred to as a “Copper”. The artist will encounter several of them and provide us with numerous accounts from which the founding principle of street art emerges: to do something beautiful, you don't have to ask for permission. Banksy offers various interpretations that contradict each other: the image presents a law enforcement officer that, borrowing common language, shows the policeman as “one of us”, while at the same time suggesting a law enforcement officer that, transcending his mandate, leads others not to trust him and to assume a more judgemental sense.
SALE ENDS TODAY
2006
silkscreen on paper
56×76 cm
ed. of 500
Sale Ends Today is one of Banksy's lesser-known images where his sarcasm is most evident. The composition shows stylised black-and-white figures as samples from biblical scenes from 16th- and 17th-century paintings, with a group of women in despair before the Saviour's passion. In Banksy's version, the biblical Saviour is not a person, but a banal red sign announcing the end of the sales, that is, the sale of goods at discounted prices. This, according to Banksy, is the real source of despair. The image refers to the repercussions on the collective behaviour of the hegemony of a consumer culture produced by capitalism, inviting us to reflect on the relationship between faith, religion and money, emphasizing how meaning, for centuries provided by religion, is now provided by money. The image has never been the subject of an uncommissioned public exhibition, but it first appeared in public in the form of a silkscreen print. A large version on canvas was auctioned at Sotheby's, London, in 2008.
TURF WAR
2003
silkscreen on paper
56×41 cm
ed. of 600
The image was produced by Banksy in 2003 as part of the Turf War exhibition, Banksy's first major exhibition in London, held in a warehouse on Kingsland Road. The exhibition opened on 18 July and was due to end a few days later on 24 July. However, the police closed it down two days after its opening because live animals were used in the exhibition itself. The punk-inspired work depicts Leonard Spencer-Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War, imagined by the artist as a real punk rocker. Banksy adorned Churchill's bald head with a crest of bright green hair making him resemble a Mohican, while referring also to a grassy tract. Indeed, to decode Turf War, it is necessary to understand the double pun referred to in the title. Turf is the Anglo-Saxon term for a grassy sod, but the phrase ‘turf war’ is used in everyday language to refer to a gang war in an urban setting. Linked to the theme of war, the image with its title seems to mean that for the artist, the essence of war is nothing more than a dispute between two contenders over a piece of land.
VIRGIN MARY
(Toxic Mary)
2003
silkscreen on paper
76×56 cm
ed. of 600
The Virgin Mary is also known as Toxic Mary because of the poison symbol on the baby bottle. According to some, the image is a harsh criticism of the role of Religion in History; according to others, it is a criticism of the way we are educating our children. The work depicts a Madonna and Child in a classic Renaissance style. Reworked by Banksy, the image features drippings that bear a peculiar element in street art. It is a typically popular image that Banksy subjects to a détournement. It involves a process of exploiting images already crystallised in memory, manipulating them and placing elements that undermine their acquired meaning. The most famous example of the use of this artistic technique is Marcel Duchamp's Mona Lisa with a moustache. Instead the term “détournement” was introduced by the Situationist philosopher Guy Debord, who interpreted it as follows: “Détournement is the integration of present or past artistic productions into a superior construction of a milieu”. Debord believes that plagiarism is an operation to replace a false idea with a true one, a thought that appears integral to Banksy's modus operandi. The artwork was first presented in 2003 as a stencil painting on canvas during the Turf War exhibition.