Banksy Work Depicting UK MPs As Chimpanzees To Be Auctioned

Banksy’s vision of the UK’s House of Commons overrun by chimpanzees is set to be sold at auction.

Devolved Parliament, a work created by the elusive Bristol artist in 2009, is estimated to go under the hammer at Sotheby’s for somewhere in the region of £1.5-2m, making it his most expensive work.

His previous record is £1.52m ($1.9m) for Keep it Spotless, a Damien Hirst painting onto which he stencilled a maid. 

The canvas – spanning 13 feet and believed to be the largest ever produced by Banksy – will go on display at the famous auctioneers, little more than a mile from the Houses of Parliament, on September 28 and will be visible to the public until October 3 when it will be sold. 

The auction will take place almost exactly a year on from the sale of Banksy’s iconic Girl with Balloon artwork, which became a ‘new’ artwork entitled Love is in the Bin immediately when it was shredded in its own frame.  

Devolved Parliament was first unveiled a decade as part of the Banksy vs. Bristol exhibition in the artist’s home city, which drew more than 300,000 visitors and became one of the world’s most-visited shows that year. 

Most recently, the painting appeared again in Bristol in order to mark March 29, the original ‘Brexit Day’ before an extension for October 31 was secured. 

 The artist himself famously said: “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable”, and Devolved Parliament is typical of Banksy’s parodical style, which has frequently been used to create a political commentary around a wide range of contemporary issues including climate change and the refugee crisis.