Masons

Masons

Year: 2003
Medium: Gouache on board in six parts
Dimensions: Each 45×60 cm (17 3/4 x 23 1/2 inches)
Edition: Unique
Signed, titled, numbered 1-6, and dated “03” on the reverse of the sixth panel

 

Auction History

Auction House: Sotheby’s London

Date: 18 October 2013

Price realized: GBP 68,500

 

 

A cartoon made up of six consecutive panels, Masons is an astoundingly rare, early and unusual work. Figures in simple clothing erect and carve a monolith in the shape of a CCTV post, in front of which the community prostrates worship in the sixth and final panel.

 

 

The title of the work may refer to Masonic organizations, and thus to the Freemasons’ belief in a “Supreme Being”, or “Grand Architect of the Universe”. This correlation is further enhanced in Masons by the carving of the stone, which indirectly refers not only to Freemasonry’s medieval ancestor, Stonemasonry, but also to other faiths, such as ancient megalithic worships.

Using the comical anachronism of a lithic CCTV device as a pagan worship vessel, Masons challenges society’s blind acceptance of contemporary ‘crime-prevention’ and visibility systems. Banksy’s use of a sequential strategy to comment on contemporary social and political issues also.

 

One of the only other recorded examples of Banksy’s extremely scarce use of this genre is Simple Intelligence Testing, which commanded the second highest price at auction for a work by Banksy, and sold for over six times its low estimate at that time.