A shipping truck painted by Banksy is expected to sell for over $1 million at Bonhams.
Banksy, Turbo Zone Truck (Laugh Now But One Day We’ll Be In Charge), 2000. Courtesy of Bonhams.
Amid Aston Martins and Bugattis at Bonhams’s forthcoming car auction, sits a 1988 Volvo FL6, a 17-ton shipping truck. The truck, an early artwork by Banksy dating back to 2000, is estimated to sell between £1 million and £1.5 million ($1.3 million to $2 million).
The truck, titled Turbo Zone Truck (Laugh Now But One Day We’ll Be In Charge), is painted in its entirety by Banksy and is “signed twice in stencil” according to the auction house. Bonhams is calling it Banksy’s largest artwork ever.
The artist painted the truck at a New Years party in Spain and continued to work on it for two weeks. The truck then toured Europe and South America with the Turbozone Circus, an extreme circus company known for its pyrotechnics. It bears images and phrases that would later become Banksy trademarks, including the phrase “Laugh now but one day we’ll be in charge” and the image of flying monkeys.
Bonhams describes the work:
The uniquely hand-painted 17-ton truck is a mobile testament to Banksy's longstanding, breakthrough vandalism of art's old-hat approach to painting on canvas and paintings in galleries. Taking the vehicle of the laborer, the workman and the blue-collar employee as his blank canvas, the present motorcar and work of art revels in Banksy's raw and unfiltered wit; a masterclass of the artist's satirical humour and impressive dexterity with spray-paint.
The work will be accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Banksy’s handling office Pest Control, and whoever purchases the artwork will be pleased to know they can take it for a drive—the Volvo FL6 remains in perfect running order.
