Banksy’s anti-Brexit installation heads to auction: “Keep Ou T” expected to sell for $2.3 million

Phillips will auction one of Banksy’s most characteristic anti-Brexit works, Keep Ou T, a 2019 installation created on a real Heathrow Airport gate for arrivals from the EU. As Artnet News reports, the work will feature in Phillips’ evening sale of modern and contemporary art in London on October 15, with an estimate of £1.2–1.8 million, around $1.5–2.3 million.

The work consists of a closed metal security gate, topped with the blue “Customs – Arrivals from the EU” sign, on which the anonymous artist has written “KEEP OU” in white, while the missing letter “T” is held in the hands of one of his characteristic rats, positioned at the padlock hanging at the base of the gate. Rats, Banksy’s longest-used symbol for suburban life and rebellion, here literally dismantle the order word by word.

Keep Ou T was first presented at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition in 2019, at the height of the political debate over Britain’s departure from the European Union. The work belongs to a short series in which Banksy referred to Britain’s relations with the EU: a year earlier, in Dover, he painted a worker dismantling a star from the EU flag, while in 2018 he transformed a UKIP billboard into “Vote to Love”. The work is currently on display at Phillips’ gallery at 30 Berkeley Square, with public viewings from October 8 to 15.

With an estimate approaching two million pounds, the auction sees the work go on sale precisely during the busiest week of London’s art market, a new year of challenges and record prices for the contemporary market.