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Artworks
Banksy
Choose Your Weapon (Slate) (Signed), 2010Screen print on paper70 x 70 cm.
27 1/2 x 27 1/2 in.Edition of 25Signed and numbered
Pest Control COA£ POAChoose Your Weapon first appeared on a wall in Bermondsey, London in 2010 before the street stencil piece was subsequently boarded over and framed in Perspex to preserve the work....Choose Your Weapon first appeared on a wall in Bermondsey, London in 2010 before the street stencil piece was subsequently boarded over and framed in Perspex to preserve the work.
The work shows a youth in a hoodie whose face is covered and makes one recall the slogan of then Prime Minister David Cameron “Hug a Hoodie”. Holding a stylised dog, it in itself a reference to Keith Haring’s Barking Dogs series, the figure looks disenfranchised, sunken and is a parody of the media hysteria surrounding youth who wore hoods at the time.
Likewise, the layered print also subverts the notion of man’s best friend and, instead of a friendly companion, the dog itself has become a weapon. Taking arms against the system and shining a light on those who are marginalised, Choose Your Weapon is one of the few Banksy works where the artist draws from street art iconography.