Artist: Banksy (British, 1974)
Title: untitled "Police Van Chimp"
Year: 2003
Medium: aerosol on glass van window

An original aerosol painting on glass, executed by Banksy as part of his “Turf War” exhibition, which was staged in an abandoned London warehouse in the summer of 2003.

Banksy’s “Turf War” exhibition — widely considered his breakthrough — combined animal, political, and pop culture imagery: with live cows sporting Andy Warhol’s face; tethered sheep painted as if wearing concentration camp garments; and a crashed “police” van graffitied with subversive imagery.

One side of the van featured the words “Turf War” next to a painting of a gas-masked pig lighting a bomb, an anarchy symbol, and flowers. The phrase “Anarchy in the West Country” was sprayed across the other side of the vehicle. The rear of the van featured yellow and orange stripes on the doors, and the image of a chimpanzee staring out at the world from the rear window.

This chimpanzee image stems from Bansky’s artwork “Laugh Now,” originally commissioned by the Ocean Rooms Nightclub in Brighton in 2002. That work was a spray-painted mural featuring ten chimpanzees in a row wearing sandwich boards: some boards blank, some bearing the ominous message “Laugh now, but one day we’ll be in charge.”

Following the “Turf War” exhibition, the underground performance group known as the “Prada Meinhof Gang” took possession of the van, intending to destroy it during a future live performance. The van was transported from the warehouse site by friend and fellow artist Mangrey, who ran a now-defunct pallet yard in the Clarnico Sweet Factory. Here, Mangrey removed the back window of the van as a memento and would retain it in his flat for the past 20 years. The van eventually returned to south London before disappearing completely.

This window is a rare original artifact from this groundbreaking exhibition, and a unique example of an original Banksy “Laugh Now” artwork, many originals of which have fetched high prices at auction. An acrylic and aerosol example on canvas sold for $2,280,000 USD in 2021, and a spray-paint and emulsion on paperboard example sold for $2,070,000 USD. Examples of the limited-edition prints of the chimp with sandwich board have sold for upwards of $90,000 USD.

The significance of “Turf War” extends beyond marking Banksy’s emergence on the art scene: according to expert Richard Jones, it might also constitute the only on-camera appearance of the elusive artist. A man claiming to be Banksy was interviewed on video at the warehouse by ITV London’s Hague Gordon, with the van bearing the “Laugh Now – Police Van Chimp” clearly visible behind him.

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