Will Banksy’s Chimpanzees Laugh to a Record $2 Million?
What effect did the artist’s 2018 salesroom prank have on his prices? A major sale at Sotheby’s looks set to reveal the impact.
LONDON — Banksy, the world’s favorite artist-provocateur, is set to enjoy another moment of auction activism.
The Bristol-born street artist created a global media sensation last October when one of his iconic “Girl With Balloon” paintings shredded itself moments after selling for one million pounds, or about $1.4 million, at Sotheby’s.
Almost exactly a year later, on Oct. 3, another notable Banksy painting will be offered in the same London salesroom. With a valuation of £1.5 million to £2 million, it is expected to reach a new auction high for the elusive, anonymous artist.
The painting, “Devolved Parliament,” dating from 2009, is a timely satire on Britain’s political establishment, showing an animated debate in the House of Commons, the lower house of Parliament, conducted entirely by chimpanzees.
Wittily painted with the dreary realism of the paintings that hang in Britain’s Houses of Parliament and measuring more than 14 feet wide, the painting was shown at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery in the artist’s hometown to coincide with Britain’s scheduled departure from the European Union on March 29 this year, a date that was postponed until Oct. 31. “Devolved Parliament” will now be displayed in London just four weeks before the revised Brexit deadline.
Demand for Banksy’s paintings and prints has surged since last October when Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art in Europe, announced “We’ve been Banksy-ed” at a post-sale news conference. The remote-controlled shredding mechanism jammed halfway down the canvas, leaving it dangling beneath its elaborate gold frame: Banksy aficionados quickly claimed this “Girl With Balloon” had added value as a unique piece of performance art. Soon after, Sotheby’s announced that the buyer, described as a “female European collector,” was happy to keep her booby-trapped purchase.
The painting, now retitled “Love Is in the Bin,” has since March been hanging on long-term loan at the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart, Germany. “Presented in the museum context, it has to stand up to key works from the history of art — from Rembrandt to Duchamp and from Holbein to Picasso,” says the Staatsgalerie’s website.
The artistic prank of the century, designed to satirize the excesses of the auction world, has now become a highly valued museum piece.
This time around, it seems that Banksy himself is not behind the sale. Sotheby’s catalog entry for “Devolved Parliament” says the work was “acquired from the artist by the present owner in 2011.” Banksy’s publicist, Joanna Brooks, said in an email, “The painting in question is being sold by the owner who is in no way associated with the artist Banksy.”
Story by Scott Reyburn
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