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Love Is In The Air, 2002

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Standing among Banksy’s most celebrated images, Love is in the Air is an early iteration of his seminal ‘flower thrower’ motif. The work dates from 2002, three years before the seminal mural first appeared on the side of a garage near the newly-erected West Bank barrier wall. Offering a poignant response to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it was this image that cemented Banksy’s position on the international stage, establishing him both as an artist and as an activist. The masked insurrectionist—armed not with weaponry but rather with a floral bouquet—has since become a twenty-first-century icon, representing a universal image of peace and reconciliation. Over time, moreover, he has come to operate as an extension of Banksy himself, encapsulating the anonymous, non-violent insurgence that defines his urban interventions. Uniquely rendered using a hand-cut stencil and reproduced on the cover of his seminal 2005 book Wall and Piece, the work shares its title with the 1978 John Paul Young hit, injecting its message with a characteristic note of tongue-in-cheek wit.

As the conflict continues—most recently escalating with a renewed outbreak of violence in 2021—the image endures like a beacon, offering hope to those across the world whose lives have been overturned by war. An icon of the 21st century, Banksy’s Love Is In The Air is one of the artist’s most recognizable images. Evoking the 1960s pacifist slogan “Make Love Not War,” the work is a symbol of peaceful resistance and an ode to spontaneity.
Executed in 2002, the present work is from a discrete edition of five canvases Banksy created for his debut exhibition in Los Angeles, Existencilism, at the 33 1/3 Gallery in July 2002. Like Bernini’s David, in Love Is In The Air, a solitary protestor is captured just at the moment before climactic action.
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, David, 1623-1624. Galleria Borghese, Rome
Image: © Vanni Archive / Art Resource, NY
However the weapon of choice for Banksy’s figure is a bouquet of flowers. The stenciled image first appeared as graffiti in Jerusalem in 2003 shortly after the erection of the West Bank Wall. One of Banksy’s most sought-after images, Love Is In The Air is quintessential of Banksy’s tongue-and-cheek social critiques expressed through his signature graphic style.
Banksy, Beit Sahour, Palestine, 2005. Photo: © PHOTOBYTE / Alamy Stock Photo. Artwork: © Banksy / Courtesy of Pest Control Office, Banksy. 
Despite the site-specific context of its iteration on the West Bank Wall, Love Is In The Air represents protest without specifying its target, thereby embodying a hint of the punk ethos of non-conformity and perpetual resistance to authority that is typical of the artist’s early graffiti works. Like Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Banksy utilizes graffiti as a tool for activism—but for Banksy, the stencil is the driving force. As he expressed, “As soon as I cut my first stencil I could feel the power there. I also like the political edge. All graffiti is low-level dissent, but stencils have an extra history. They’ve been used to start revolutions and to stop wars.”
Keith Haring, Ignorance = Fear / Silence = Death, 1989, Whitney Museum of Art
Across the various painted iterations of Love Is In The Air, Banksy varies the effect of the spray paint, showcasing different renderings of shadow, blur, and the figure’s bouquet. In the present work, the artist elongates the shadow between the figure’s legs and creates a prominent blurring effect to the image, at once evoking the speed of the protestor’s movement and the nature of memory. Creating a striking visual contrast with the rest of the composition, the touches of bright red allude the color’s dual significations of violence and love, encapsulating Banksy’s message for this iconic image—love as the ultimate weapon.

Anti-Vietnam peace protestor Jan Rose Kasmin confronting the American National Guard with a chrysanthemum flower outside the Pentagon, 1967. Photo: © Marc Riboud / Fonds Marc Riboud au MNAAG/Magnum Photos.

The choice of flowers, over a brick or hand grenade, is significant, evoking the sentiment of the Flower Power movement and the associated anti-war demonstrations in America during the 1960s. Images from the time show protestors offering flowers to military police, and—in a landmark Pulitzer Prize-nominated photograph of 1967—placing carnations inside their rifle barrels. Banksy’s work operates in a similar vein: despite its anarchic edge, its mission is ultimately one of outreach, sending sparks of joy and comfort to local communities, and timely warnings to those in positions of power.

Since Love is in the Air, the West Bank barrier wall has become a site of particular focus for Banksy. Over the years, multiple works have sprung up in the region: notably his 2005 take on his iconic Girl with Balloon, depicting a young girl being lifted over the wall by a bunch of balloons. In 2017, Banksy designed the Walled Off Hotel with a view of the barrier, in an attempt to boost tourism in the area while simultaneously highlighting the ongoing conflict. The location of Love is in the Air, however—a town called Beit Sahour, just east of Bethlehem—holds deeper significance still. In Christian tradition, it is said to be the site of the Annunciation to the shepherds, which told them of the birth of Jesus. Interestingly, the pose of Banksy’s protagonist is perhaps reminiscent of the angel statue outside the town’s Shepherds’ Fields Chapel, whose arm similarly reaches into the distance. In Love is in the Air, Banksy makes a case for ongoing hope in a region that once bore tales of miracles and salvation, his protagonist pointing eternally towards the future.

Auction Results

Love is in the Air, 2002

Christie’s London: 13 October 2022
Estimated: GBP 500,000 – 700,000
GBP 567,000 / USD 635,650

BANKSY (christies.com)

REPEAT SALE
Christie’s London: 1 July 2009
Estimated: GBP 40,000 – 60,000
GBP 46,850 / USD 77,130

BANKSY
Love is in the Air, 2002
Spray paint on canvas
21×18 inches (53.4 x 45.7 cm)
From a series, Tagged ‘Banksy’ (lower right)

Provenance
And A Boutique, Tokyo.
Private Collection, Japan (acquired from the above in 2002).
Anon. sale, Christie’s London, 1 July 2009, lot 304.
Private Collection, Belgium (acquired at the above sale).
Thence by descent to the present owner.

Love is in the Air, 2002

Christie’s London: 1 March 2022
Estimated: GBP 600,000 – 800,000
GBP 978,000 / USD 1,303,670

BANKSY (christies.com)

 

BANKSY
Love is in the Air, 2002
Spray paint on canvas
17×17 inches (43.2 x 43.2 cm)
Executed in 2002, this work is a variant outside an edition of five

Provenance
33 1⁄3 Gallery, Los Angeles
Private Collection (acquired from the above in 2002)
Anon. sale, Sotheby’s London, 2 July 2008, lot 307
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Exhibited
Los Angeles, 33 1⁄3 Gallery, Existencilism, 2002 (another version exhibited)

Love Is In The Air, 2002

Phillips New-York: 23 June 2021
Estimated: USD 1,000,000 – 2,000,000
USD 1,179,500

Banksy – 20th Century & Contemporary Ar… Lot 46 June 2021 | Phillips

BANKSY
Love Is In The Air, 2002
Spray-paint on canvas
20×17 inches (50.8 x 43.3 cm)
This work is number 4 from an edition of 5

Provenance
Laz Inc., London
Private Collection (acquired from the above)
Sotheby’s, London, June 26, 2009, lot 174 (titled as Untitled (Flower Thrower))
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Exhibited
Los Angeles, 33 1/3 Gallery, Existencilism, July 19 – August 18, 2002 (another example exhibited)

Executed in 2002, the present work is from a discrete edition of five canvases Banksy created for his debut exhibition in Los Angeles, Existencillism, at the 33 1/3 Gallery in July 2002.

Love is in the Air 2002

Bonhams London: 29 March 2012
Estimated: GBP 40,000 – 60,000
GBP 87,650 / USD 139,180

Bonhams : Banksy (b. 1975) Love is in the Air

BANKSY (b. 1975)
Love is in the Air 2002
Stencil spray paint on canvas
51×43 cm (20 1/16 x 16 15/16 inches)
Stenciled BANKSY to the overlap
Signed, dated 2002, numbered 2/5 and inscribed LA to the reverse

Provenance
Existencilism, 33 1/3 Gallery, Los Angeles
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner in 2002

 

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