Ballerina with Action Man Parts, 2005
Painted resin
31x20x18 cm (12 1/4 x 8 x 7 inches)
Edition of 6
Stamped with the artist’s signature
Sotheby’s London: 16 October 2017
GBP 87,500
Sotheby’s London: 16 October 2017
GBP 87,500
Exhibited
Crude Oils, London, 2005
Banksy vs. Bristol Museum, Bristol Museum, Bristol, 2009
Banksy: The Unauthorized Retrospective, S/2 London, curated by Steve Lazarides, 2014
Ballerina with Action Man Parts could be seen as Banksy’s version of The Little Dancer by Edgar Degas. But it seems she has had to endure some of the ecological disasters humans caused through their race for oil and gas. She is showing quite an elegant point even though she is wearing a gas mask, and seems to be dancing on top of some oil that polluted the environment…
Edgar Degas (1834-1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. He also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is especially identified with the subject of dance; more than half of his works depict dancers. Although Degas is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, he rejected the term, preferring to be called a realist and did not paint outdoors as many Impressionists did.
Edgar Degas, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, 1878-1881
National Gallery of Art
Degas’s only showing of sculpture during his life took place in 1881 when he exhibited Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. A nearly life-size wax figure with real hair and dressed in a cloth tutu, it provoked a strong reaction from critics, most of whom found its realism extraordinary but denounced the dancer as ugly.
In a review, J.-K. Huysmans wrote: “The terrible reality of this statuette evidently produces uneasiness in the spectators; all their notions about sculpture, about those cold inanimate witnesses… are here overturned. The fact is that with his first attempt Monsieur Degas has revolutionized the traditions of sculpture as he has long since shaken the conventions of painting.”
