The Gift from Hell? Rethinking the Preservation and Market of Banksy’s Street Art. By Peter Hvidberg. It is particularly instructive to examine the pricing structure of Banksy’s works prior to the establishment of Pest Control, which was formally instituted in January 2008. In 2007, the major auction houses—Sotheby’s, Phillips, and Bonhams—regularly offered works by Banksy without any formal certification from Pest Control, for the simple reason that no such system of authentication had yet been introduced by the artist or his representatives. However, this situation changed fundamentally in 2008, when the auction houses collectively aligned themselves with the new framework and, from that point onward, restricted sales to studio works accompanied by official certificates. Street works were effectively excluded from the secondary market. One might plausibly describe this shift as a form of market manipulation. A telling example occurred on 25 April 2007, when Bonhams sold two street works by Banksy. One of them, Think Tank, was estimated at €30,000–€45,000 but ultimately fetched £110,000—almost three times the high estimate. The other, also from the Think Tank series and titled Space Girl and Bird, was initially estimated at €15,000–€22,000 but astonishingly realized €350,000 at auction. By contrast, in the same year, Banksy's studio works consistently achieved significantly lower prices, with several failing even to meet their lower estimates. This disparity strongly suggests that the market, at that time, clearly recognized the street works as the most vital, authentic, and culturally significant segment of Banksy’s practice—even though, paradoxically, these are the very works for which the artist refuses to provide authentication. Banksy himself has, at various points, underscored this distinction, asserting that his true
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