Homeless di Milo
Year: 2006
Medium: Resin fiberglass
Size: 182 x 69.8 x 61.3 cm (71 ⅝ x 27 ½ x 24 ⅛ inches)
Edition: From a varied edition of 3
Signed and dated ’06 on the backside of the base
Exhibition History
Los Angeles, Banksy: Barely Legal, September 2006 (the present example exhibited)
Bristol, Bristol City Museum, Banksy vs Bristol Museum, June – August 2009 (another edition exhibited)
Homeless Di Milo exemplifies Banksy’s famed ability to hijack art history to form powerful social commentary. In a subversive appropriation of an icon of classical sculpture, Banksy’s version of the Louvre’s Venus de Milo wears a coat, cap and cardboard sign, transforming the sculpture from a symbol of an ancient past to a reflection of our own age.
Homeless Di Milo was first exhibited at the infamous three-day intervention ‘Banksy: Barely Legal’ in a Los Angeles warehouse in 2006. A melee of brazen acts and controversial exhibits, including a literal, live ‘elephant in the room’, the event became a testament to the cultural phenomenon surrounding the anonymous street-artist. Later, the sculpture was part of the again notorious 2009 survey ‘Banksy vs Bristol Museum’, where Banksy returned to his native city to ‘takeover’ the museum for the summer. Both exhibitions defined a rebellious visual language and cultural iconoclasm encapsulated in the present work.
VENUS DI MILO, CIRCA 100 B.C., LOUVRE MUSEUM PARIS
Thought to depict either Aphrodite or Amphitrite, the Venus de Milo is revered as a masterpiece Hellenistic sculpture. It was discovered on the Aegean Island of Melos in 1820 and brought to the Louvre in Paris the following year, where it remains today. Alongside The Winged Victory of Samothrace, which Banksy has also appropriated in Angel Bust, the Venus de Milo is one of the best known sculptures residing in the Louvre, an ideal of classical beauty and artistry. Banksy approaches this sculpture with typical irreverence and satirical prowess. Homeless Di Milo is at once provocative and poignant, confronting the viewer and their priorities. As Will Gompertz comments, “Banksy makes art that, as Hamlet said, holds ‘…the mirror up to nature: to show virtue her feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.’” (Will Gompertz, ‘Will Gompertz on Banksy’s Shredded Love is in the Bin’, BBC News, 13 October 2018, online). Fellow street artist Shepard Fairey expands, ‘people usually see art as an abstract emotional vehicle, lacking the direct impact of language. Banksy paints over the line between aesthetics and language, then stealthily repaints it in the unlikeliest of places. His works, whether he stencils them on the streets, sells them in exhibitions or hangs them in museums on the sly, are filled with wit and metaphors that transcend language barriers’ (Shepard Fairey, ‘The 2010 Time 100: Banksy’, Time, 29 April 2010, online)
LEFT: THE VICTORY OF SAMOTHRACE, THE LOUVRE, PARIS. RIGHT: BANKSY, ANGEL BUST, 2009, BRISTOL CITY MUSEUM, BRISTOL IMAGE: © ÉLAN IMAGES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO ARTWORK: © BANKSY 2022.
