April 8th 2021 London
THE BRITISH NEWSPAPER
1.4 Million Dollars through the Shredder
Banksy’s latest provocative event at Sotheby’s
Banksy is currently the most famous street artist but we do don’t know a lot of things about him because he’s keeping secret his identity. We just know he starts in Bristol and he is British: it’s not lots of information. Banksy’s aim is to create an outstanding painting to make people thinking or to make homage to something. The enormous street artist is also a political activist and a film director. It’s a very mysterious artist with a special relationship to money: he is against people who are selling his artwork. He mostly does his pieces on walls and bridges and his aim is, for me, to share with everybody his artwork: the world is his canvas.
Banksy’s artworks all have a very strong message and denounce some social issues. The artist wants to tell something and he made it very well. He seems very cynical and ironic but also poetic when he “talks” about a subject so we can see it in his pieces: each one denounces one of the society’s flaws. When I see a Banksy work of art, I firstly think it’s very realistic and then I understand the message, and the creation become more interesting and touching. When I’ve seen “Mobile Lovers” and “Slave Labour” for the first time, it made me thinking about my behaviour and my role in our consumer society. Banksy has sprayed “Mobile Lovers” in 2014. Currently, we participate to a consumer society in which we can’t live without our phones. We are obsessed. On “Mobile Lovers”, we can see a couple, but both are not looking at the other; they are looking at their phones. The only light comes from the mobiles: the background, their clothes, everything is dark or shadowy except their phones. Through the use of this striking contrast, Banksy intends to show how much mobiles are important in our lives (here, more then love). The characters are more in love with their phones then with the other. It’s very sad and it denounces one of our current society’s flaws: our dependence on our mobiles. In May 2012, before the opening of the London Summer Olympics, Banksy made “Slave Labour”. We can see on this picture a little boy who is working on creating union jack flags (the little boy is a drawing but the flags are real one, hanging at the wall). The little boy looks sad and exhausted by his work. He is on the ground. His clothes seem very old and damaged. The art work offers again a striking contrast: the very sad little boy painted in black and white “against” the very colourful flags. It arouses a feeling of sadness and empathy. It makes me want to cry. The author manages to create a desolate atmosphere and he wants to point out the child labour. I think it’s one of his most striking pieces. There are also very striking and famous Banksy’s pieces like “Girl with Balloon” (2002, London), “Kissing Coppers” (2004, Brighton) or “Love is in the air/Flower Thrower (2003, Jerusalem).Walls are Banksy’s weapon to try to make the world change. Often, some pieces disappear: some people destruct, erase or steal them for different reason and it’s a pity. In 2019, someone stole the Banksy artwork on the Bataclan but it was recently found in Italy.
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