Crude Oils
London, October 2005
A Gallery of Re-Mixed Master-Pieces, Vandalism, and Vermin
OFFICIAL BANKSY EXHIBIT
When: 22-24 October 2005
Where: 100 Westbourne Grove, Notting Hill, London, England
Crude Oils featured 20 versions of classical oil paintings, re-invented by the artist. The show was also populated by around 200 live rats and featured some unique accompanying sculptures. This “Gallery of re-mixed masterpieces, vandalism and vermin” ran for around a week in a small shop in Notting Hill, located at 100 Westbourne Grove.
Environmental health officers came out and inspected the facility to find everything to be safe and in order despite the protests from other businesses nearby.
Those works were traditional oils on canvas bought at flea markets around London that feature various Banksy-modifications: added motifs that evoke the fallout of present-day social decline. Chocolate-box landscapes are interrupted by burnt-out cars or police incident signs, a Renaissance Virgin and Christ child listen to an iPod, while traditional portrait subjects are transformed into gas mask wearing sitters.
In addition to these hand-painted works on canvas, the show also featured a number of “vandalized” classical sculptures: a Venus with a traffic-cone over her head sporting full-body tattoos while a portrait bust wears a khaki balaclava. Animating the whole event, however, and further underscoring the anti-establishment tone of Banksy’s first “conventional” show, was a live interactive element: the inclusion of 164 live rats set loose within the gallery space.
Banksy and The Rise of Outlaw Art – Crude Oils
In his Sunday Times Culture review of the 2005 exhibition, Waldemar Januszsak compared Banksy’s Crude Oils to a Surrealist or situationist happening, describing the production as an elaborate and engaging mise en scene: “So, the scene has been set, the evocation evoked. We’re in a dilapidated museum overrun by rats that have eaten the attendant and set a melodramatic post-Holocaust mood that continues into the paintings”
(Waldemar Januszsak, ‘Who’s afraid of the big bad guy?’, The Sunday Times, 23 Oct. 2005).
RE-MIXED MASTER-WORKS
One of the highlights of Crude Oils was a series of 20 classical oil paintings, including some iconic artworks from art history re-invented by Banksy, from van Gogh, Monet, Hopper, and Warhol.
Show Me The Monet
(after Claude Monet)
(after Claude Monet)
Show me the Monet was displayed at the street-facing end of the shop-turned-gallery. On prominent view to those passing on the street, this painting set the tone for the exhibition, an event that some 15 years later is now recognized as a milestone in the artist’s career.
Sun Flowers from Petrol Station
(after van Gogh)
(after van Gogh)
Show Me the Monet joined three other fully painted “remixes” of canonical works of art. Installed along the same wall and across the back of the gallery space, Banksy’s re-imagined Monet accompanied a wilted, bloomless version of van Gogh’s Sunflowers; and a take on Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks in which a topless Union Jack boxer-wearing man has smashed the late-night bar’s glass window.
Tesco Value Soup Can
(after Andy Warhol)
(after Andy Warhol)
Are You Using That Chair
(after Edward Hopper)
(after Edward Hopper)
Jack Vettriano’s popular Singing Butler featuring a sinking oil liner and two men in hazmat suits wheeling a barrel of toxic waste.
Toxic Beach
(after Jack Vettriano)
(after Jack Vettriano)
MODIFIED OILS
Facing these works on the wall opposite were a number of modified oil paintings.
Those works were traditional oils on canvas bought at flea markets around London that feature various Banksy-modifications: added motifs that evoke the fallout of present-day social decline. Chocolate-box landscapes are interrupted by burnt-out cars or police incident signs, a Renaissance Virgin and Christ child listen to an iPod, while traditional portrait subjects are transformed into gas mask wearing sitters.
Modified Oil Painting #7
Incident Board
Incident Board
Modified Oil #21
Guantanamo Bay
Guantanamo Bay
