Screenprint Edition: 623/750

49 × 69 cm. 19 1/4 × 27 1/8 in. （畫面）;56 × 76 cm. 22 × 29 7/8 in. （紙張）

Numbered on bottomt left; signed in English on bottom right
PROVENANCE
Important Private Collection, Asia

This work is accompained by a certificate of authenticity issued by Pest Control, London

The Confrontation between Civilisation and Consumerism
Banksy's Silent Hunting Scene on the Savanna

From graffiti works to Girl With Balloon which went into a shredding machine during the auction, the British artist Banksy, born in 1974, aroused controversies in the art world with his dark humour and highly critical works. He uses his works as weapons to attack issues of corruption, pollution, hypocrisy, and absurdity, while calling against war and terrorism. His works are humorous yet profound, often sharp but not without warmth. Now, Banksy's graffiti works such as Girl With Balloon and Flower Thrower have become cultural symbols of the city. Collected by the British Museum and the Centre Pompidou, his works have also helped street artists to gain more public attention, which the CNN London columnist Max Foster called the “Banksy Effect”.

The silkscreen print, Trolleys is based on his previous oil on canvas work, Trolley Hunters, painted in 2006. Printmaking is not only similar to Banksy's favourite stencil graffiti method, but it also gives Trolleys the sense of flatness and decentralised quality that belonged to Pop art, since there can be multiple collectors.

The picture depicts a typical African savanna landscape, where a golden grass field is set off against the clear blue sky. With their backs to the viewer, three indigenous men crouch down holding primitive weapons, clearly in the middle of a hunt. Ironically, they are not preying on animals, but a group of gregarious shopping carts. One of the shopping carts seems to notice the hunters, turning to face them with a gesture of confrontation. The clash between life and death brought by the act of hunting, together with the bizarreness of modern objects intruding a primordial setting, creates dramatic tension as in a pantomime.

Banksy's pictures are full of humorous sarcasm and implied meaning. On one hand, he satirises the way modern people have been tamed by the consumerist society in the capitalist world and lost many basic abilities. On the other hand, he points to the endlessly growing desire within our current civilisation, as well as issues of excessive purchasing, possession and accumulation. Between the shopping cart that symbolises one's material desire and the primitive men that represent natural instinct, which is the hunter, and which is the prey? Banksy's reflection upon this philosophical proposition also urges us to think carefully and deeply.

Price estimate:
HKD: 400,000 - 600,000
USD: 51,000 - 76,400

Auction Result:
撤拍