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Banksy™ Cushions - Mixed Media by Banksy 2019 - MyArtBroker

Banksy™ Cushions
Mixed Media

Banksy

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40 x 40cm, Mixed Media

Medium: Mixed Media
Year: 2019
Size: H 40cm x W 40cm
Signed: No
Format: Mixed Media
Last Auction: July 2022

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Auction Results

Auction Date
Auction House
Location
Return to Seller
Hammer Price
Buyer Paid
July 2022
Tate Ward Auctions
United Kingdom
£9,350
£11,000
£13,750
March 2021
Tate Ward Auctions
United Kingdom
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Banksy's Banksy™ Cushions (2019) is a mixed media artwork, estimated to be worth between £6,000 and £9,500. This artwork has shown consistent value growth, with an auction history of two sales on 24th March 2021 and 13th July 2022. The hammer price in the last five years has ranged from £11,000 in March 2021 to £28,000 in July 2022. This unsigned artwork has an impressive average annual growth rate of 26% and a strong average return to the seller of £12,275. The edition size of this artwork is limited.

Created with Highcharts 11.4.8Mar 2021Jun 2021Aug 2021Nov 2021Feb 2022Apr 2022Jul 2022£8,000£9,000£10,000£11,000£12,000£13,000£14,000£15,000© MyArtBroker

Meaning & Analysis

From the ubiquitous ‘Keep calm and carry on’ to ‘Today I choose joy’ these days it’s hard to avoid an inspirational – and often saccharine – message. As well as appearing on your Instagram feed against a background of slick nature photography these also feature on keep cups, greeting cards and of course cushions.

Here Banksy cleverly subverts the genre with a pair of cushions that simply state ‘Life’s too short to take advice from a cushion’. While immediately funny to the reader these also present an empathetic response to those who feel overwhelmed by the barrage of positivity hawked by homewares brands and Instagram influencers that can often make the average person feel inadequate when faced with their own negative feelings. In a world where structural inequality and austerity prevents many from ‘chasing their dreams’ it is easy to feel embittered by cushions proclaiming that ‘the only limit is your imagination’.

One of the most highly sought after products in Banksy’s Gross Domestic Product shop, each pair of cushions is unique, as they are ‘upcycled’ from ‘what gets found in the charity shop’. With their tongue in cheek message they are perfectly at home in the work of Banksy whose particular brand of dark humour, which often relies on wordplay to poke fun at the state and figures of authority, has brought him many fans.

At the time of the GDP launch many of Banksy’s artworks had already been made into cushions by entrepreneuring companies who took advantage of the artist’s lack of trademark to produce soft furnishings featuring his famous Girl With Balloon or Flower Thrower artworks, allowing fans to buy their own little bit of subversive street art, now neatly and cheaply commercialised. In fact the GDP shop came about as a result of one of these companies taking action to acquire the rights to the artist’s name; with this venture Banksy ensured he retained control over the line of products released with his designs and could now show the imitators to be counterfeiters.

The move to open a shop was received with mixed feelings by fans and critics. While some commented, “A cushion with the inscription 'Life’s too short to take advice from a cushion'? SOLD!” and “I need Banksy’s whole new GDP shop collection.”, others saw GDP as a further ‘selling out’ on the artist’s part, commenting, “Wasn’t Banksy supposed to be art for the people without the need for payment? We all need money to survive I suppose…” and “All of this is really cool stuff but doesn’t the online website kinda go against the whole anti-consumerism idea portrayed in all his art?” With this work and the whole GDP project Banksy proved once again to be the kind of artist that tows the line between accessibility and commercialisation, his artworks cum products both deriding and embodying the very structures he claims to be against.

'Are you fed up with soft furnishings trying to express feelings on your behalf? Then let these stencilled cushions make that clear. They come as a pair but might not match as they’re painted on what gets found in the charity shop.' –Gross Domestic Product.

  • Renowned British street artist, Banksy, is the enigmatic figure behind some of the most subversive works in the Urban Art scene. Despite his anonymity, the artists' disruptive stunts have not only gained him notoriety, but they have vocalised his stance on many social and political issues. As seen with the likes of Girl With Balloon and Napalm, Banksy uses his distinctive stencil technique to produce thought-provoking commentaries on challenging themes. The showcase of rebellion that lines his work has caused his secondary market value to soar in recent years, propelling him to the top of the Urban Art scene.

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