Agency Job 

Editor: So this is "Agency Job," and the artist is Banksy. It looks like oil paint and maybe some montage or collage techniques are involved? I find the work so strange—the placid, traditional painting ripped apart, a contemporary figure perched on the frame, smoking. How do you interpret this work? Curator: The disruption of the familiar image is key here. Look closely – what painting does it recall for you? The posture of those in the field... the color palette? Editor: It reminds me a bit of Millet’s "The Gleaners." Are those the figures it appropriates? Curator: Exactly. Now, what does it signify when Banksy extracts one of these peasant figures and replaces her with, essentially, another? One who looks like she is weary after generations of hard labor and is now sitting outside of the canvas to partake in an illegal habit. Editor: So the new figure embodies a kind of disillusionment, a break from the romanticized view of labor in paintings like Millet’s? It's such a loaded commentary when we think about race, class, labor... Curator: Indeed. This appropriation, this visual rupture, serves as a potent symbol of cultural memory. Consider how the wheat the sitter rests upon mirrors that which is within the image. There are things she retains, like the need to pause to gather strength. There are some aspects she leaves behind as obsolete. She still gathers wheat. The more pertinent question might be, for whom? Editor: So interesting—a collapsing of time and context, revealing enduring inequalities. I hadn't considered how the smoking figure is also gleaning, only from a different field entirely. Thanks for that deeper read! Curator: My pleasure! I always find something new each time I return to it. Visual symbols resonate over centuries, but how they resonate changes depending on who views them and when.