Venus, 2006
Oil on canvas
97.7 x 121.5 cm (35 3/4 x 47 7/8 inches)
Unique
Stenciled-signed “BANKSY”, lower right
Further signed and dated “Sep 2006” on the overlap
Sotheby’s London: 27 June 2013
GBP 146,500
Exhibited
Barely Legal, Los Angeles, 2006
Venus is one of the most important examples of Banksy’s highly significant and internationally celebrated series of Corrupted Oils, in which masterpieces of the Western Art Historical tradition are vandalized through frequently humorous additions. Brilliantly provocative and boldly witty in its appropriation of probably the most iconic image of beauty, Banksy’s Venus transforms Velazquez’s The Rokeby Venus (1647-51) into a pithy commentary on the commercialization of looks and appearance in the modern age.
Rokeby Venus, Diego Velazquez, oil on canvas, 1647-1651
Whilst the original painting – in which the languidly reclining goddess of Love admires herself in the mirror held up by her son Cupid – is an unabashed meditation on female beauty, Banksy’s Venus subverts this message with exquisite irony. Venus, the most beautiful of the gods, is here rendered delightfully fallible through the presence of a bandage on the bridge of her nose, clearly indicating that a woman considered the acme of feminine perfection has succumbed to the lure of cosmetic enhancement. Through this small but loaded addition, Banksy thus transforms the goddess into a recognizably mortal woman, one who turns trustingly to the modern phenomenon of cosmetic surgery as an instinctively accepted solution.
Venus, which formed part of “Barely Legal”, Banksy’s seminal exhibition in Los Angeles that achieved widespread acclaim and recognition for the artist, is the perfect incarnation of this sentiment and retains the sharp sense of humor and witty satirizing of contemporary culture that characterize his graffiti art. With truly remarkable painterly skill, Banksy recreates Velazquez’s work before adding his own addition and in doing so challenges the whole canon of Art Historical practice. Far from being dislocated from his urban art, with his Venus Banksy’s foray into figurative art magnificently encapsulates the thrillingly subversive spirit that he embodies.
Source: Sotheby’s
