[pw]

Not content with being a successful gallery owner and agent, Laz now seems intent on taking on the auction houses at their own game:

www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aUijmiHrSM0U&refer=muse





London Gay Bar to Host Auction by Banksy Dealer Lazarides

By Linda Sandler

Oct. 1 (Bloomberg) -- A London gay bar, the Shadow Lounge, will host a $3 million auction on Oct. 11 during the Frieze Art Fair, with works by Banksy, Damien Hirst and Jean-Michel Basquiat, said Banksy dealer Steve Lazarides.

``We're targeting people who might buy, and we want to make it a fun event,'' Lazarides said today in a telephone interview. ``Most art events are a bit stuffy.''

The catalog for the sale, ``The Soho Auction,'' features pictures of prostitutes, some with telephone numbers.

The auction during the contemporary art fair will be a first for Lazarides, who sells original works by the former graffiti star Banksy, Jamie Hewlett and Antony Micallef out of a gallery on Greek Street. Most of the 20 lots are new works and were gathered directly from the artists, including a Banksy rat picture at 80,000 pounds, Lazarides said.

The Shadow Lounge, described on Web sites as a private club on Brewer Street in London's Soho district that lets in non- members, is a gay pole-dancing bar, Lazarides said. Burlesques will be staged during the auction, and there will be ``various acts through the night,'' he said.

Andy Warhol will be auctioned, as will Micallef. ``It's a mixture of the old and new,'' Lazarides said. ``All the art is fairly maverick.''

Lazarides's Soho auction will be part of a series of sales by Sotheby's, Christie's International, Phillips de Pury and Co. and Bonhams during Frieze, whose organizers said they expect about 63,000 visits this year.

Rat in Overalls

Banksy provided three new pieces for the auction, Lazarides said. The rat wears a pair of overalls and holds a paint pot and a roller. It is a unique work, he said. ``I took a price of 80,000 pounds because that's what I thought it could get.''

Lazarides sold his first Banksy canvases sometime around the year 2000 for 250 pounds. Similar paintings change hands now for 250,000 pounds, he said. Unsigned Banksy prints that he used to sell for 35 pounds now run to a thousand pounds or more.

Lazarides declined to identify Banksy, who keeps his name a secret. He said he wasn't Banksy himself. Banksy probably wouldn't attend the auction, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Linda Sandler in London at [e-mail] .
Last Updated: October 1, 2007 11:40 EDT

[johnas]

pw said:

Lazarides, who sells original works by the former graffiti star Banksy,

eh? have i missed something? has he had a career change?

[kronoopus]

Where can I get one of those catalogs?

[pw]

johnas said:

pw said:

Lazarides, who sells original works by the former graffiti star Banksy,

eh? have i missed something? has he had a career change?

havent you heard. hes mainstream now! ;D

[dotdot]

interesting story - looks like Laz is going a bit off the wall
so to speak - which can't, at this point, be that bad.... sounds
like a bizarre idea to me - which is cool.

..

..question - will wonky donkey be in residence

[RBK]

I wonder what Sotheby's thoughts on this play are...

Interesting idea though

[catfelix69]

Sounds cool, I think the auctions should match the art being sold - the Sothebys etc auctions are still stuck in the 1920's!

[guest2]

pw said:

Not content with being a successful gallery owner and agent, Laz now seems intent on taking on the auction houses at their own game:

www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aUijmiHrSM0U&refer=muse
London Gay Bar to Host Auction by Banksy Dealer Lazarides

By Linda Sandler

....

``We're targeting people who might buy, and we want to make it a fun event,'' Lazarides said today in a telephone interview. ``

...... Laz show fun, yeah right, he's having a giraffe!

[Oliver Garland]

IV got a ticket to the preview at Frieze art fair...

[Chuck D]

Brilliant idea. Laz is stepping into the big leagues...on his own terms. You've gotta respect it.

[corisma]

He said he wasn't Banksy himself.

Pheeww .. Glad he cleared that one up then ! ;D

[wildbill]

chuckd said:

Brilliant idea. Laz is stepping into the big leagues...on his own terms. You've gotta respect it.

Most definitely.......why the fuck should he or anyone else, have to bow down to these big auction houses and play by there rules.

I love it!

[Pattycakes]

I've got the full article she wrote here it is:

Banksy's Graffiti Art May Total $2 Million at Auctions, Gay Bar
2007-10-02 03:23 (New York)


By Linda Sandler
Oct. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Banksy collectors will sell as much as
1.1 million pounds ($2.2 million) of art in London at Sotheby's,
Bonhams, Bloomsbury Auctions and a gay bar this month as prices
jump for works by the graffiti artist.
Banksy's ``The Rude Lord,'' an original 1776 Thomas Beach
portrait altered to show an extended finger, has a 200,000 pound
top estimate at Sotheby's. The spray painted ``Rat with Roller''
will be offered at 80,000 pounds in the Shadow Lounge, a gay bar.
A ``Kids on Guns'' image, auctioned for 600 pounds in 2004, is
priced at as much as 30,000 pounds at Sotheby's.
``A lot of people bought these pieces early on for little
money,'' said Cheyenne Westphal, Sotheby's European contemporary
art chairman. ``They're selling because it's a big downpayment for
a mortgage.''
Banksy, an unnamed artist from Bristol, England, was born in
1975, according to the sale-tracker Artnet AG. He rose from the
U.K. streets to the auction rooms in 2004. While his social
comments and pranks have drawn collectors from hedge funds to
artist Damien Hirst, buyers may have to stretch to take up the 51
Banksy images on the market at current prices.
Banksy, who once displayed a dead rat in London's Natural
History Museum, keeps his real name secret. He probably won't
watch the Shadow Lounge sale, which has three Banksys and will
feature burlesques, said dealer Steve Lazarides, who organized the
event. ``Most art events are a bit stuffy,'' Lazarides said.
The autumn auctions lure buyers from the Frieze Art Fair,
whose organizers expect 63,000 visits from Oct. 11-14.

Leipzig Letdown

Still, expensive young artists can be vulnerable. At
Sotheby's last October, Leipzig painters Neo Rauch and Matthias
Weischer, previously in demand from London to Miami, went unsold
after a run-up in values. Weischer, born in 1973 and priced as low
as 30,000 pounds a couple of years earlier, had a top estimate of
300,000 pounds at the sale.
Now, Sotheby's has 552,000 pounds of Banksys to sell. Two of
the eight works date from 2006 and one, ``Balloon Girl,'' is dated
2005, showing how fast collectors are reselling art in hope of a
gain. Four of Banksy's ``Heavy Weaponry'' pictures are on the
block at Bonhams and Bloomsbury this month.
Banksy's unsigned, large-edition prints have some of the
highest prices when the number of copies in the run is taken into
account. ``Love Rat,'' a 2004 print of a wall picture of a rat and
a red heart, has a top estimate of 1,000 pounds at Bloomsbury. The
image is No. 577 out of 600, said Artnet. That implies a value for
the whole edition of 600,000 pounds.

Hirst Levels

As a measure, a 1992 Hirst spot painting and Yue Minjun's
``Sunshine'' from 1993 both have top estimates of 700,000 pounds
at Christie's International's October sales. Lazarides sold his
first Banksy prints around 2000 for 35 pounds.
If ``Love Rat'' was signed, it might run to 6,000 pounds,
said Alexander Hayter, Bloomsbury's head of 20th-century prints.
At Bonhams, ``Heavy Weaponry'' from 2000, showing a bomb
strapped to an elephant, has a high estimate of 35,000 pounds,
valuing the series of 10 at 350,000 pounds. Banksy originally
stenciled the image onto a Shoreditch railway arch and asked
buyers to e-mail orders, Bonhams' Web site said. The paintings
were available three months later at a nearby bar, with Banksy's
request for cash payment, Bonhams said.
Banksy's fame grew after his September, 2006 exhibition,
``Barely Legal,'' in a Los Angeles warehouse, which was attended
by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, according to local papers. At the
U.K.'s Glastonbury Festival in June, Banksy arranged portable
toilets in a circle to resemble the ancient Stonehenge monument.
The artist's higher-priced works are hard to get, according
to Westphal, who said she'd never met Banksy.

Top-Level

``We've got some top-level clients buying Banksy,'' Westphal
said. ``They are collectors who also spend $10 million on a great
Warhol or a Hirst.''
Banksy's auction record is 288,000 pounds at Bonhams in April
for ``Space Girl and Bird,'' a design commissioned by the pop band
Blur. The top estimate was 15,000 pounds, said Artnet.
For October, Bonhams has 11 Banksys with a high estimate of
295,000 pounds. Bloomsbury's 28 pictures are valued at around
162,000 pounds. Christie's has one Banksy with a top estimate of
50,000 pounds. In addition to the Banksy works, Lazarides has art
by Hirst and Andy Warhol at the Shadow Lounge.

[neutral]

billiam said:

chuckd said:

Brilliant idea. Laz is stepping into the big leagues...on his own terms. You've gotta respect it.

Most definitely.......why the f**k should he or anyone else, have to bow down to these big auction houses and play by there rules.

I love it!

As much as they have their rules, they are main art instutions and Laz also depends on them to do his market and present his artists to a wider audience.