Recently the Pest Control website (the official organization for authenticating Banksy’s work) was updated and the below message was put on their “What is Pest Control?” page. Note the “sales” section:
So that’s new. Pest Control is now the only organization selling original Banksy work on the primary market. I guess Banksy has finally left Lazarides behind (and possibly POW as well, but that makes no sense). Rumors have been swirling for the longest time that Banksy would be leaving Lazarides, but they usually involved Banksy being picked up by larger contemporary galleries like Gagosian or Opera.
This show goes to show how powerful an individual can be in today’s society even without a large organization to back them up. We’ve seen this sort of self-management in music, with Nine Inch Nails ditching their record label and doing fine, and we’ve already seen it in art with Damien Hirst’s auction. Now Banksy’s giving it a try as well.