Laugh Now

Born behind a bar in Brighton

Laugh Now began as decoration. In 2002 the Ocean Rooms, a nightclub in Brighton, commissioned Banksy to paint its interior, and he stenciled a line of monkeys to form the backdrop of the bar. One of them carried a crude placard reading "Laugh now, but one day we'll be in charge." Sources describe the mural as about six meters long with ten monkeys in a row; one auction record gives it as three painted boards measuring 107.5 x 604.5 cm.

The motif did not start there entirely. A research catalogue of Banksy's work lists a painted Laugh Now But One Day We'll Be In Charge dated 2000, and one sold at auction in 2008 as an untitled 1998 board, so the slogan and monkey appear to predate the nightclub commission. Sources agree that the Brighton mural is where the image took its definitive form.

Over the next few years Banksy painted the monkey again and again on canvas, plywood, cardboard, plaster and metal, and in 2003 it became a screenprint released through Pictures on Walls, the London outlet he ran with his then agent, Steve Lazarides.

What the monkey is saying

The composition is spare: a single monochrome chimpanzee, shoulders slightly bowed under the board, oversized feet, arms hanging at its sides, against a plain brown ground. In the print the clean stencil lines give way at the feet to drips, like wet paint running down a wall.

The joke turns on itself. The first half of the slogan invites the viewer to laugh at the animal; the second half is a quiet warning that today's hierarchy is temporary. Writers have read the monkey as a stand-in for the working class, the marginalized, animals used for entertainment or testing, or graffiti artists themselves, who in 2002 were widely dismissed as vandals. Banksy has used the monkey often, including in a 2000 self-portrait with a monkey's head and two spray cans.

In 2009 Banksy showed Devolved Parliament, a painting of the House of Commons filled with chimpanzees, which some writers treat as the Laugh Now prophecy come true. It sold at auction in London in October 2019 for just under £9.9 million.

The 2003 print

The screenprint was issued in 2003 on a 70 x 50 cm sheet in three forms: 150 signed and dated in black ink at lower right, 600 unsigned numbered in pencil, and 69 signed artist's proofs. The unsigned impressions are numbered without the publisher's blindstamp.

The signed edition is about four times scarcer than the unsigned one and has long traded at a large premium to it. One market record counts 20 signed sales at auction since 2018 and 51 unsigned.

A handful of signed impressions sold outside the numbered run carry personal inscriptions, such as one dedicated '4 BRENDAN' with a peace symbol and another with a gift, heart and peace symbol.

The market for a monkey

From 2008 through 2013 signed impressions sold at auction for between $14,655 and $21,188. In February 2008 the original Ocean Rooms mural, removed from the club's wall, sold at auction in London for £228,000 with fees, more than twice the next-highest work in the sale. It sold again in New York in November 2013 for $485,000.

Signed prints climbed steadily through the late 2010s, reaching $61,665 in January 2019. Then came the 2020-2021 boom in Banksy editions. On February 25, 2021, impression 86/150 sold in London for £200,250 with fees, recorded as $282,720, the auction record for a signed Laugh Now. By the end of June 2021 four more signed impressions had sold, three of them for between about $189,000 and $215,000.

Originals went far higher. On June 8, 2021, Laugh Now Panel A, a separate 2002 version on drywall in the artist's frame that was shown at Banksy's first Los Angeles show, sold in Hong Kong for HK$24,450,000; it was the first time its auction house accepted bitcoin or ether as payment. A 2000 canvas version sold in Hong Kong ten days later for HK$17,720,000.

Signed print prices then fell back: $132,320 in Japan in March 2022, about $78,000 to $95,000 in 2023, about $67,000 to $80,000 in 2024, and $63,510 in December 2025, roughly where the market stood before the boom.

An image Banksy could not trademark

Pest Control, the body that has authenticated Banksy's primary-market work since 2008, filed an EU trademark for the monkey-sign image in November 2018, and it was registered in June 2019. A greeting card company opposed it that November, arguing it was filed in bad faith.

In May 2021 the EU Intellectual Property Office declared the trademark invalid in its entirety, calling the image arguably the most iconic and famous of his works. The ruling noted that the monkey had existed as graffiti in public view and that Banksy had offered high-resolution versions of his work for the public to download, and it cited his line from Wall and Piece that "copyright is for losers."

The image remains a fixture: a museum in Amsterdam has run a long-term exhibition titled Banksy: Laugh Now since 2017.

What to look for

A signed Laugh Now is a color screenprint on wove paper, 70 x 50 cm, signed and dated in black ink at lower right and numbered out of 150. Unsigned impressions are numbered out of 600 in pencil; artist's proofs are signed and marked AP. Some auction lots are marked DN, for duplicate number.

Because the image was widely reproduced, buyers of any impression should confirm the edition details and authentication through Pest Control.

The numbers

Medium

Screenprint in colors on wove paper

Dimensions

Sheet 70 x 50 cm (27 1/2 x 19 3/4 in)

Edition

150 signed and dated in black ink; also 600 unsigned and 69 signed artist's proofs

Catalogue raisonne

None stated in the sources

Current owners

Dispersed among private collectors; no public collection holding of the print is documented in the sources

Timeline

1. 2000

   A painted Laugh Now But One Day We'll Be In Charge is dated to this year.

2. 2002

   Banksy paints the monkey mural for the Ocean Rooms nightclub in Brighton.

3. 2003

   Laugh Now is released as a screenprint: 150 signed, 600 unsigned, 69 signed artist's proofs.

4. Feb 5, 2008

   The Ocean Rooms mural sells at auction in London for £228,000 with fees.

5. Oct 14, 2008

   A signed impression, 35/150, sells in the United Kingdom for $14,655.

6. Nov 12, 2013

   The Ocean Rooms mural sells at auction in New York for $485,000.

7. 2017

   A long-term exhibition titled Banksy: Laugh Now opens in Amsterdam.

8. Nov 2018

   Pest Control files an EU trademark for the monkey-sign image.

9. Oct 2019

   Devolved Parliament, Banksy's chimpanzee House of Commons, sells in London for just under £9.9 million.

10. Feb 25, 2021

    Signed impression 86/150 sells in London for $282,720, the auction record for the signed print.

11. May 2021

    The EU Intellectual Property Office declares the monkey-sign trademark invalid.

12. Jun 8, 2021

    Laugh Now Panel A sells in Hong Kong for HK$24,450,000, with cryptocurrency accepted as payment.

13. Mar 12, 2022

    A signed impression sells in Japan for JPY 15,525,000 ($132,320).

14. Sep 26, 2024

    Signed impression 31/150 sells online for $79,860.

15. Dec 10, 2025

    A signed impression sells in the United Kingdom for $63,510.

The world in 2003

• Feb 15, 2003

  More than two million people march in London against the Iraq War, the largest demonstration in UK history.

• Feb 17, 2003

  The London congestion charge comes into operation.

• Mar 20, 2003

  British troops join the invasion of Iraq.

• Jul 18, 2003

  Weapons expert David Kelly is found dead near his home in Oxfordshire.

• Oct 24, 2003

  Concorde makes its final commercial flights.

• Nov 22, 2003

  England win the Rugby World Cup, beating Australia 20-17 in extra time.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Laugh Now is number 54 of 100 in the art entries of the FLOAT 100. 88 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (47 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The image began as part of a mural behind the bar of a Brighton nightclub, the Ocean Rooms, in 2002.
• The club later took the mural off its wall and sold it at auction in 2008 for £228,000 with fees.
• Laugh Now Panel A, a 2002 painted version, was the first lot for which its auction house accepted bitcoin or ether as payment, in Hong Kong in June 2021.
• Banksy also painted a version of the monkey with a board reading "keep it real"; it was never made into an editioned print.
• The EU trademark office threw out Banksy's trademark on the image in 2021, citing his own line that "copyright is for losers."
• A signed impression sold for $14,655 in 2008; another from the same edition of 150 sold for $282,720 in 2021.