Size
Year
2012
Medium
Prints , Drawings & Works on Paper
Reference
6f4435b6
Screen print, Artist Proof from edition of 16, released only to VIP friends of the artist, 68 x 70 cm, includes Pest
Control COA.
Love Hurts is a highly coveted artist proof print that was only released to VIP friends of the artist and has never been made available to the public. The print shows a wayward and damaged heart-shaped balloon rising above a barbed wire fence.
Love Hurts is layered in its meaning and opens up the floor to many interpretations and its unanswered questions showcase a more sophisticated side of the artist. Where does the damage on the balloon come from? Was it from a previous attempt to scale over the prickly barrier, or was it damaged on its own from something long before? Is the balloon stuck in the fence or will it succeed in its attempt to do what balloons inherently do by nature – rise above? Love Hurts distils a complex scenario into a simple proverb: love can be a very painful experience, but a hopeful heart has the potential to be set free.
The Image of the Love Hurts balloon has been used at various times in multiple formats. Spray-painted on the streets of New York in 2017, installed as a painting in Banksy’s Walled Off Hotel in Israel, and it is rumoured that Chris Martin owns the original Love Hurts canvas.
, United Kingdom
Banksy (Born 1974 England) is a graffiti artist from Bristol, UK, whose artwork has appeared throughout London and other locations around the world. Despite this, he carefully manages to keep his real name from the mainstream media. However, many newspapers assert that his real name is Robert or Robin Banks
Banksy, despite not calling himself an artist, has been considered by some as talented in that respect; he uses his original street art form, often in combination with a distinctive stencilling technique, to promote alternative aspects of politics from those promoted by the mainstream media.
Some believe that his stencilled graffiti provides a voice for those living in urban environments that could not otherwise express themselves and that his work is also something which improves the aesthetic quality of urban surroundings; many others disagree, asserting that his work is simple vandalism (a claim made by at least Peter Gibson, spokesperson for Keep Britain Tidy), or that his (apparently left wing) beliefs are not shared by the majority of the inhabitants of the environments that he graffitis. This political purpose behind his vandalism is reminiscent of the Ad Jammers or subvertising movement, who deface corporate advertising to change the intended message and hijack the advert.
Banksy does, however, also do paid work for charities (e.g., Greenpeace) as well as demanding up to £25,000 for canvases. It has also been alleged and denied that Banksy has done work with corporations such as Puma. This has led to him being accused of being a sell-out and a careerist by other artists and activists.
Because of the shroud of secrecy surrounding his real identity and his subversive character; Banksy has achieved somewhat of a cult following from some of the younger age group within the stencilling community.
In 2004 the Space Hijackers gave out spoof vouchers outside a Banksy exhibition to highlight the artist's ironic use of anti-capitalist and protest imagery while doing work for corporations and art galleries. Another of Banksy's tricks involved hanging a piece of his own art in London's Tate Modern, and as of March 2005, the New York Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History. In May 2005 Bansky's version of primitive cave painting depicting a human figure hunting wildlife while pushing a shopping cart was found hanging in the British Museum.
On 4 August 2005, the BBC reported that Banksy had painted 9 images on the Palestinian side of the Israeli West Bank barrier, including an image of a ladder up and over the wall and an image of children digging a hole through the wall.
Banksy has also self-published several books that contain photos of his work in various countries as well as some of his canvas work and exhibitions, accompanied by his own subversive and often witty writings. His first book, published in black and white, is ‘Banging Your Head Against a Brick Wall Followed by the Full Colour Existentialism’. In 2004 he published his third book, ‘Cut it Out’, and 2005 saw the publication by ‘Random House of Wall and Piece’.
Address
London, 436 King's Rd, Chelsea
Tanya Baxter contemporary, based in London and Hong Kong, is a leading art advisory and gallery with nearly twenty-five years’ experience working in the Post-Modern, Modern British and Contemporary art market. The London Gallery, established in 1998, is situated in Chelsea. The Art Advisory office in Hong Kong is based in the up and coming Wong Chuk Hang D...