Pest Control + Banksy, by Daniel Silk on Mar 28, 2008 13:34:10 GMT 1, www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601093&sid=atzap1AKbTfk&refer=home

Banksy Stars; Design Booms; Summer Sale Dates: London Art Buzz
By Scott Reyburn

March 27 (Bloomberg) -- Works by Banksy will be the top lots as a U.K. regional auction house joins the rush to sell urban art.

Dreweatts, which has salerooms in Banksy's home city Bristol, said its June 17 auction of more than 100 items in London could make between 1 million pounds ($2 million) and 1.5 million pounds.

Among the works will be the early Banksy acrylic on canvas, ``Portrait of an Artist,'' that Dreweatts said had been bought by the seller for a few hundred pounds at the artist's 1999 Bristol exhibition. It is estimated at 200,000 pounds to 300,000 pounds.

A stencil-on-foam-board, ``Glastonbury Sign,'' acquired by its vendor around the time of the 2003 pop festival, is expected to fetch 30,000 pounds to 50,000 pounds.

The material will be shown in Bristol from June 5 to 10 and the sale will be at Village Underground, Shoreditch.

In February, Bonhams raised about 1 million pounds with fees in the first auction devoted to Urban Art. A Banksy painting of chimpanzees carrying sandwich boards topped the sale with a price of 228,000 pounds. Bonhams plans another sale on Oct. 23.

``Britain's urban art movement has its roots in Bristol,'' said Stephan Ludwig, chairman of Dreweatts, in a telephone interview. ``It makes sense for a regional auction house with offices in that city to put on this kind of sale.''

Micallef, Walker

Ludwig said that around half the works for sale will be by established names like Banksy, fellow Bristolian Nick Walker and Brighton-based Antony Micallef.

According to Ludwig, more than 90 percent of the lots will be from sellers in the Bristol area.

Ludwig said that Dreweatts would only accept for auction Banksy works that had been approved by Pest Control, a newly created company that authenticates and checks the provenance of the artist's works whenever they come up for sale.

Pest Control is headed by Holly Cushing, who has been the manager at Banksy's dealer, the Lazarides Gallery, based in Soho.

``Lazarides remains the worldwide primary dealer for Banksy,'' said Calum Sutton, who answers public-relations enquiries on behalf of the gallery, when contacted by telephone.

Design Art

This month at Tefaf, the world's largest art and antiques fair which is held in the Dutch city of Maastricht, some dealers said collectors were moving into more affordable areas such as classical and oriental antiquities, Oceanic and African tribal art.

At the same time in London, contemporary collectors were buying ``design art'' furniture from the Carpenters Workshop Gallery's first exhibition at its new showroom in Albemarle Street, Mayfair, which ran from March 4 to March 22.

CWG partner Loic Le Gaillard said 12 limited-edition pieces were sold for between 12,000 pounds and 100,000 pounds. The most expensive purchases were designed by Ron Arad.

``A lot of people are struggling to find furniture that matches the quality of their contemporary art collections,'' Le Gaillard said. ``You can have a lot of fun for far less money than contemporary art.''

Among the younger artists featured in the show was 31-year- old Frenchman Vincent Dubourg.

``Four years ago we were selling Dubourg's designs in editions of eight for 6,000 to 8,000 pounds,'' said Le Gaillard. ``We're now pricing equivalent pieces at 18,000 pounds to 20,000 pounds.''

King's Furniture

At the other end of the age spectrum, 74 year-old British sculptor Phillip King has started creating ``design art'' for a Mayfair gallery. King, a former president of the Royal Academy, became prominent in the 1960s for his colored sculptures.

From April 1, Cork Street dealer Bernard Jacobsen will show works made out of foam PVC that ``traverse the boundary between sculpture and furniture,'' according to the gallery's press release. Prices range from 1,750 pounds to 60,000 pounds.

Summer Dates

Sotheby's and Christie's International's brief experiment with holding their rival London contemporary-art auctions in different weeks is over.

Christie's said that its summer auction of contemporary art will take place on June 30. Sotheby's said its auction will be scheduled for the following evening, July 1. The two houses' sales of Impressionist and modern art will be held the previous week, as is traditionally the case in New York.