Banksy Because I'm Worthless (Pink) (Unsigned) For Sale

Edition

Edition of 175

Because I'm Worthless (Pink) is a 2004 screen print by Banksy that explores the themes of capitalism, protest and the working class. Released and published by Pictures on Walls the work is from a signed edition of 75 and an unsigned edition of 175. Banksy’s Because I’m Worthless print is part of a series of three, commonly known as the Placard Rats, with each rat holding a protest placard with a phrase seemingly graffitied onto the card. Because I’m Worthless plays on the famous advertising slogan of L'Oréal “Because I’m Worth It”. In Because I’m Worthless the rat stands alone holding a placard whilst weaning a peace symbol necklace. As with many Banksy works, the artist cleverly plays into a popular cultural motif - the L'Oréal slogan and subverts it’s very notion calling into question the value we assign to companies and products over our very own wellbeing. The rat can be seen to symbolize the working class, every day person on the street, and the masses, and how society deems them worthless and not good enough. Protest is the answer. Far from being downtrodden and ignored, rats themselves living as marginalised animals, eking out a living in shadows and on the peripheries of society, The work is a call to arms as Banksy invites the disenfranchised and working classes to embrace protest, to question their value and to rise up.