Flower Chucker
Flower Chucker
Year:2003
Medium: Spray-paint on cardboard
Dimensions: 56 x 54.5 cm (26 3/4 x 26 5/8 inches)
Edition: Unique from a varied series
Auction History
Auction House: Hessink’s
Date: 26 May 2021
Price realized: EUR 1,000,000 (Hammer’s price)
Love is in the Air depicts a masked man, dressed as a militant, who is about to throw a bouquet of flowers with mercurial vigor. As he aims towards a direction unknown (located outside of the viewer’s field of vision) it becomes apparent that the man himself is the object of an imminent attack, the tip of his bouquet being prey to a large orange target.
Existing as part of a larger body of work commonly referred to as Love is in the Air or Flower Thrower, the present work was executed in 2003, shortly after Banksy had produced the image’s first iteration as a large format stenciled graffiti in Jerusalem, which itself closely followed the erection of the West Bank Wall. Today, Love is in the Air is recognized as one of Banksy’s most iconic and most sought-after artworks, existing not only in the realm of fine arts but also as the graphically powerful subject of numerous commodified goods, including posters, phone covers, t-shirts and other types of merchandise all over the world.
Typical of Banksy’s socially charged imagery, Flower Chucker demonstrates the artist’s sustained interest in the absurdity of war, as well as the arbitrariness that can derive from unequal power dynamics. Indeed, while the spray-painted protagonist is armed with blooming plants and nothing else, the forces surrounding him seem to operate from heavier weaponry, placing him in a position of immediate danger.
