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1st Edition
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- Artists
- Banksy
 - Edition Details
| Year: | 1998 | | Class: | Original Art | | Status: | Official | | Run: | 1 | | Technique: | Original Mixed Media | | Size: | 94.48 X 390.95 | | Markings: | Signed |
- EB Awards
- Nominate Now
- Event
- Glastonbury Festival (1998)
- Comments
- Add Comment
"It's better not to rely too much on silent majorities ... for silence is a fragile thing... one loud noise and it's gone."
Spray paint on metal from an over lander trailer chassis, signed in white spray paint by both artists
240 x 993 cm
94.48 x 390.95 in
Sold by Digard (1st June 2015) for EUR625,399 (US$687,176 / GBP493,578)
Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Pest Control Office
Provenance:
Created as a live performance art work at Glastonbury festival in 1998
Private collection by trailer owners
Bibliography:
The owners of the trailer describe how their home came to be painted by Banksy and what it meant to them: “Silent Majority was painted in 1998 at Glastonbury Festival as a Graffiti show outside the Dance Tent, done over three days. Banksy asked us if he could use the side of the lorry as a large blank canvas. We agreed as it's easy to paint over had we not liked it. After all it was our home! He had painted a friend's fairground ride The Rib Tickler with another artist friend Wet Panit or Bender Dave as we called him. So we were introduced through them. So it all started with a phone call from Banksy who had got our number through these mutual friends. We had never hear of Banksy, but had heard of Inkie, another artist who wanted to work with Banksy on our trailer. Inkie was quite a big name in the rave scene doing artwork for Club YeYo t-shirts and the XXX posse, free parties, raves, Amsterdam clubs.
This was where it was at and the parties were nothing like the commercial festivals of today. This era has gone, it really is like that now. Most festivals have lost there ethos, forgotten their soul and are run by capitalising councils and individuals that jump on the band wagon. Silent Majority depicts the last rave and hip hop scene of the time - A sound system being landed on the beach in a military style. This was how illegal raves were executed. People who put on free parties would find the location then set the date. Liaise with one another then hit it hard in one swoop. Before you knew it, tents erected and systems in place. Followers and party goers wait eagerly for texts of the location on the night, there was less chance of being busted before. Once a rave is in full swing it is very difficult for police to stop it. All they can do is to hang out and police it. Banksy took Street Art off the street and turned it into performance art appearing at festivals and raves. Sometimes with surprise installations and sometimes performing in front of the crowd as he did with both sides of the trailer. The significance of Silent Majority is that it depicts this era and was painted whilst the free party movement was in its prime by the two prolific street artists of the time Banksy and Inkie. It is one of the oldest pieces still around and most probably one of the few with a COA from Pest Control. It's style is definitely Old Skool Graffiti free landed with very little use of stencils. This is where he came from before he was famous.
A piece from the beginning of his career. It is a one off true original. The trailer has been our home since before Silent Majority was painted. We have travelled and lived in it as our home since and it has been seen around the country (UK) at various events, festivals and free parties.” Created at the legendary Glastonbury Festival in 1998 Silent Majority is one of the oldest and most exceptional artworks by World-renowned street artist Banksy in collaboration with seminal graffiti artist Inkie. Silent Majority stands apart from all other original artworks by Banksy for several reasons. The first being that this sale with Digard Auctions, marks the primary sale for Silent Majority and its public debut. The foundation of the work is very unique for an artist who deliberately expresses himself on specifically chosen vernacular architecture or on commercial intended customary mediums such as print. The untraditional stage on which Silent Majority resides makes it an exceptional facet alone: painted on an original traveler's trailer measuring almost 10 metres long. The piece was one of Banksy's earliest artworks and created with the property owners' permission even before his career had catapulted to his current acclaimed fame. What's more, most of Banksy's artwork that is produced outside is often removed from the artist's intended position and certainly originally created without the property owner's consent. In the case of Silent Majority, Banksy specifically requested the permission of the trailer's owners, a feature that is exceptional in its own right. Accordingly, Silent Majority comes with a Certificate of Authenticity from Bansy's team at Pest Control. This vital attribute of acknowledgement by Banksy is frequently and purposefully absent as since 2008 he stopped the trade in his outdoor works, distancing him-self from the art he intended to remain on public surfaces or those not produced as a viable commodity with intent to sell. This is a rare exception and the first time a work of this size and importance has come to auction. In the same year at Glastonbury Banksy also painted another lorry of a DJ friend. Unlike Silent Majority this lorry is no longer complete and all that remains of this piece is three small panels, depicting the helicopter stencils also used in Silent Majority, and was subsequently sold at Christies in 2008 for £103, The owners of the work recount Silent Majority's origins, “Silent Majority was painted in 1998 at Glastonbury Festival as a Graffiti show outside the Dance Tent, done over three days. Banksy asked us if he could use the side of the lorry as a large blank canvas. .... The significance of Silent Majority is that it depicts this era and was painted whilst the free party movement was in its prime..... Silent Majority depicts the last rave and hip-hop scene of the time.” In context, the fact that the artwork was produced over three days and at a public graffiti show at Glastonbury Festival is another contributing factor that makes Silent Majority so extraordinary. For the next seventeen years Silent Majority remained private was lived in and cherished by its current owners. Inkie, the artist who created the lettering on this truck described the day he painted this with Banksy; ”I painted Nathan and Maeve's truck, together with Banksy and Lokey, over two days at Glastonbury festival in 1998. It was painted at the right hand side of the Dance Stage as part of the Hiphop Phenomenon event, we also did the stage decor and rotating canvases above the crowd. Mode 2 painted the other side of this truck for the same festival. Banksy Painted all the figures and helicopter, I painted the ‘Stealth' lettering and Lokey helped with the details to finish up. I remember painting this well as I got really drunk and fell off the ladder into the mud, well it was Glastonbury after all!! This is quite a significant work as it was probably one of the last times Banksy painted in public and also made freehand figures/images before concentrating mainly on stencil based work....” Set on a gloomy moonlight night, Silent Majority depicts figures dressed in military attire with armed forces helicopters following behind invading the viewer with a sound system and a DJ on an inflatable raft. The words “It's better not to rely too much on silent majorities...for silence is a fragile thing...one loud noise and it's gone” frames the scene, a political message that Banksy has come to be regarded for. Produced predominately free handed with minimal use of stencils and in the style of “old skool graffiti”, the artists' signatures, Banksy and Inkie, are clearly visible in the bottom right hand corner. The significance of Silent Majority subject matter is that it was painted whilst in the prime of the free party movement by the two prolific street artists of the day and captures the era's ethos. The free party's roots are based in the belief of public hedonism and the pursuit to party established by the 90s UK youth culture. In essence an open and free event centered on a traveling sound-system. These parties would be temporarily constructed in a desolate area often somewhere rural, with word of mouth quickly spreading as a high attendance rate meant less probability for the police to close the party. These autonomous events cease to exist today and are now replaced with commercialized corporate festivals. Banksy often renders vehicles in various prints or in outdoor art, such as his much loved police donut car. Though when he uses them as a medium and a means of expression the result is intentionally powerful.
In 2013 when Banksy embarked on a month long residency “Better Out Than In” in New York City he left political installations and satirical messages throughout the city's boroughs. Two of the most technically complicated pieces involved standard New York City delivery trucks. One truck housed an enchanting mobile garden consisting of a fully working waterfall and a “digitally re-mastered sunset”. The other delivery truck “Sirens of the Lambs” drove around the City stocked with stuffed animals while playing recorded samples of animals cooing and mooing in a reference to animal cruelty and over consumption of meat. Both installations gathered notable attention and sparked discussions about their subject matter around the World. Silent Majority would have been one of the first attempted large scale installation created by Banksy and the notion to use a substantial mobile canvas to promote himself and his opinions would have started in 1998 at Glastonbury on the trailer owners home to an unknown but ambitious and talented artist.
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