After a lengthy bidding war that lasted around 13 minutes, Banksy has sold his artwork of chimpanzees in Parliament for £9Million, which roughly translates to AUD $18Million.

Banksy has done it again. Just today he has sold his monumental painting of the House of Commons overrun with parliamentary primates, to a sea of applause and really, really rich people.

The bidding war between billionaire Banksy fans (the irony here writes itself), allegedly lasted 13 minutes. In the end the painting of the House of Commons, but with chimps, sold for £9,879,500 – 9 times its previous record.

This roughly translates to $18 Million in AUD, and also sets the world auction record for the most an artwork has gone for in auction.

Now Banksy is no stranger to making commentary about the world, and I can’t help but feel that him selling this artwork to the masses for such an exorbitant amount of money is all just part and parcel with the message he’s trying to send.

Originally the artwork was meant to go for £1.5-£2Million, so essentially nobody expected such an escalation in price.

The official title of the piece is ‘Devolved Parliament’, and depicts the British House of Commons, except every single person is a chimpanzee. You wouldn’t be wrong in thinking that the idea isn’t exactly an original one, but as with most Banksy artworks, the real symbolic effort comes after the artwork is done.

By selling something so simple in it’s ideas to the wealthy, Banksy is not only making a comment on the wild state of British politics at the moment, but he’s also mocking the rich.

When it comes down to it, this artwork is no different to those dogs playing poker, and yet because the name Banksy is attached to it, people will willingly spend a fortune just to get their hands on it. It’s really quite genius.

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