Banksy KOs auction of his street works

The graffiti artist Banksy may have nullified a multi-million pound sale of his works which is being held (or not, as the case may be) in London this Saturday by the auction house Lyon & Turnbull. As reported here on Tuesday, L&T were hoping to flog off more than 20 works by the street dauber, five of which had a guide price of £250,000.

But in a statement issued through his publicist, Banksy (pictured here placing one of his own works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) has urged potential buyers to boycott the auction, a move that could render anything not properly authenticated worthless.

Said Banksy: "Graffiti art has a hard enough life as it is - with council workers wanting to remove it and kids wanting to draw moustaches on it, before you add hedge-fund managers wanting to chop it out and hang it over the fireplace. For the sake of keeping all street art where it belongs, I'd encourage people not to buy anything by anybody unless it was created for sale in the first place."

To stop fakes being sold, a body has been set up to verify Banksy's work, Pest Control, and it has already identified 226 falsely attributed pieces in the last eight months. However, while a few of the works being sold by L&T have this stamp of approval, the majority do not. Instead, the auction house cheekily went to a rival authentication body called Vermin.

In L&T's lavishly produced auction catalogue, a statement from Vermin says that it is in "no way associated with the artist known as Banksy," adding "and as such is uniquely placed to provide this service [authentication]." Each piece, it proclaims, will come with a Vermin certificate, judged by a panel of experts drawn from contemporary art dealers. But Banksy is refusing to accept Vermin's claim to legitimacy.

Among the five lots Banksy disputes are the Refuse Rat, expected to fetch £20,000, and Fungle Junk (estimate: £150,000), consisting of three panels painted on to the side of a trailer at the Lizard festival in Cornwall in 1999.

Ben Hanly, head of contemporary art at L & T, appears to sense danger. "We are sure these street works are authentic. It would be absolute madness for us to sell anything we don't believe is genuine. But whether the market agrees with us, we shall see."