Originally taking place in 2005 in London Banksy’s Crude Oils exhibition was a major stepping stone within the artist's meteoric rise to both fame and wider popularity. The subversive show, which was held as a pop-up in Westbourne Grove, was officially subtitled as a gallery of, "Gallery of re-mixed masterpieces, vandalism and vermin".
Spanning just two days (22nd-24th October,) the small exhibition (complete with over 200 live rats running around the space) saw the infamous artist take on important works and motifs within art’s historical canon and showcased his knowledge of art as well as his biting satire and wit.
Steve Lazarides, Banksy’s former gallerist, detailed the many logistical and legal difficulties surrounding the exhibition:
“It took me – I reckon – four months to find a venue that would allow us to have like, two hundred live rats running around in it. We fitted it all out so the rats couldn’t escape; we’d written a waiver form that people had to sign before they came in that said, well, you know, ‘if you get bitten by one of the rats then it’s your own stupid fault’; and then we could only have five people at a time actually in the show. So I had a stopwatch, I’d time them, they’d get two minutes – then they’d have to go.”
The exhibition featured reworked versions of classic oil paintings by Vettriano, Hopper, Warhol, Monet, and van Gogh and, for the first time, showcased Banksy’s skill with a brush more so than with a spray can.
Over 20 original works (paintings and sculptures) featured in the exhibition. The works were traditional oils on canvas bought at various flea markets around London that have been reworked by the artist with motifs that evoke the concepts of modern day social ills - disrupting the idyllic notions and connotations of the originals. Perfect landscapes are disrupted by burnt-out cars or police incident signs, a Renaissance Virgin and Christ child listen to an iPod, while traditional portrait subjects are transformed into gas mask wearing sitters.
As well as the hand-painted works on canvas, the exhibition also included a number of “vandalised” classical sculptures: a Venus with a traffic-cone over her head sporting full-body tattoos while a portrait bust wears a khaki balaclava.
Art Critic Waldemar Januszsak, in The Sunday Times, described the exhibition thusly “So, the scene has been set, the evocation evoked. We’re in a dilapidated museum overrun by rats that have eaten the attendant and set a melodramatic post-Holocaust mood that continues into the paintings”
Over the years, Andipa have included a number of the seminal works in our acclaimed Banksy shows including Are you using that Chair?, on the Crude Oils, Director Acoris Andipa says, “Crude Oils is one of my favourite series by the artist. The works showcased, at the time, a radical departure from the style we all associated Banksy with and highlighted his exceptional ability as an artist - both technically and conceptually.”
For more information on any of our Banksy original paintings for sale or to buy Banksy signed prints, contact Andipa Gallery via sales@andipa.com or call +44 (0)20 7581 1244