BANKSY // Banksy Untitled (Laugh Now…), 1998

Laugh Now stands as one of Banksy’s most significant breakthrough works, marking the point where his sharp social commentary began to resonate on a wider scale. Created in 2000 for a Brighton nightclub, the large mural showed a procession of monkeys, each carrying a placard inscribed with the phrase: “Laugh now, but one day we’ll be in charge.”The monkeys, rendered in Banksy’s stark stencil style against a flat red ground, are at once comic and unsettling. Their slouched shoulders and expressionless faces evoke subjugation, yet the text they bear hints at rebellion and a looming reversal of power.

 

The work is widely read as a metaphor for systemic oppression and the fragility of hierarchy. The monkey, historically mocked as a symbol of regression or lowliness, becomes Banksy’s stand-in for humanity, echoing both Darwinian themes of evolution and the idea that those deemed powerless may one day rise to dominate. Its repetition across the canvas mirrors mass control, conformity, and labour, likening the apes to faceless workers or exploited communities. As one of the earliest appearances of the monkey motif, Laugh Now paved the way for later works such as Monkey Queen (2003) and Devolved Parliament (2009), cementing the animal as a key vehicle for Banksy’s political satire.

 

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