Wide Boy Art Dealer Andrew Lamberty Takes Some Stik

A mural by graffiti artist Stik painted on a garage door in 2011 has been removed by its owners and sold to the ‘Television’ art & antiques dealer Andrew Lamberty.

The piece, titled,”The London Riots”, was painted on a broken garage door, which was part of the Pogo Café, a vegan restaurant in Clarence Road, Clapton. Lamberty known for his ‘market trader’ antics by millions on the Channel 4 programme, Four Rooms, negotiated a poor deal (for the naive vendors).The street art was said to have carried a price tag of a mere £2,000 and could be valued up to £50,000, if it was put under the hammer, in a sale such at the yearly Bonham’s Urban Art Auction. The sale just about covered the cost of a new door and a bit towards the monthly rent.

Richard Howard-Griffin, the entrepreneur  running ‘street art tours of London’ told a local Hackney paper; “it could set a precedent and make the private sale of public murals more socially acceptable in future”. He added: “Lamberty is depriving the community of an important artwork which he rightly recognises as important, so why not leave it there?

Lamberty claims, “His agenda is to increase Stik’s gallery prices. Stik is an important artist and his work will be worth £50,000 at some point, but it’s about the mechanics of how we get there.” Lets hope the Droit de Suite will kick in when this piece is resold, so at least an extra 4% is generated for the artist.

This is yet another example of how public art, painted for free by a new breed of street artist, has come to be traded on the open market by sharks. Last December ‘Slave Labour’ by Banksy was hacked off a wall in Haringey before cropping up in an auction in Miami with a price tag of £450,000. It was later withdrawn due to public pressure. The same mural is now being offered again in London for a similar price on 2 June.

Stik has vowed to create a new mural on the replacement door in the same location when he returns from a trip to Japan.

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