BANKSY // Rembrandt, 2009

  • Googly Eyed Rembrandt is Banksy at his most mischievous. In this work, the artist appropriates Rembrandt’s iconic Self Portrait at...
    Banksy, Rembrandt, 2009.
    Googly eyes and acrylic on canvas, 102.3 × 77 × 9.3 cm.
    Signed “BANKSY” lower right; further signed “BANKSY 09” on the reverse.
    © Banksy.
    Googly Eyed Rembrandt is Banksy at his most mischievous. In this work, the artist appropriates Rembrandt’s iconic Self Portrait at the Age of 63 (1669) and cheekily replaces the Dutch master’s deeply expressive eyes with a pair of plastic googly ones. The result is both hilarious and unsettling. With one simple, absurd intervention, Banksy undermines the solemnity of a revered masterpiece, forcing us to re-evaluate the cultural hierarchy between "high art" and "low art."
     
    As with his street interventions across London, this act of visual vandalism is more than just a prank. By choosing one of the most respected and widely recognised portraits in Western art history, Banksy challenges our reverence for institutionalised art and questions the arbitrary standards that determine artistic value. The googly eyes become a symbol of both humour and disruption, reminding viewers that even the most sacred canvases are not beyond critique or play. 
     
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  • “Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.”
    - Banksy 

     

    Googly Eyed Rembrandt takes one of the most venerated images in Western art and flips it into parody. Banksy swaps Rembrandt’s soulful, introspective gaze for a pair of cheap plastic googly eyes, instantly collapsing centuries of reverence into a sight gag. The clash between gravitas and absurdity is deliberate, asking whether even the loftiest masterpieces are immune to ridicule.
    This playful sabotage demonstrates Banksy’s long-running interest in undermining art historical authority. By tampering with a Rembrandt self-portrait, he highlights the fragility of cultural value and pokes fun at the distance between institutional sanctity and everyday humour. As ever, the joke is simple, sharp, and impossible to ignore.