Banksy – Laugh Now

These stenciled images on boards of the chimpanzee with the sandwich board were originally made specially for a nightclub in the UK. This famous Banksy image first appeared on walls back in 2002. Banksy reportedly stenciled these pieces inspired by the popular saying: “Don’t step on the little people on your way to the top.” The chimp certainly looks down, troubled, with its eyes in shadow and its board which reads: “Laugh now, but one day we’ll be in charge.” However, that same stencil was later used with a variety of other sayings, such as “Keep it real” and “Lying to the police is never wrong.”

An early version of this piece was sold at Banksy’s often forgotten exhibition, Existentialism, which was held in 2002 at the 33 1/3 Gallery in Los Angeles. Another version of this piece was part of a set of three canvases auctioned by Sotheby’s in 2008, and fetched a price of over £87,000. And yet another version, which was originally stenciled on a nightclub wall in Brighton, was also auctioned in 2008 at a landmark sale of urban art at the Bonhams auction house, and fetched a price of nearly half a million dollars.