Banksy's agent is a New York sensation

A LONDON-BASED gallerist, who began his career at a car boot sale, has become the New York modern art world's latest sensation.

Steve Lazarides, who is agent to the guerilla artist Banksy and runs two galleries in the West End, opened his controversial show The Outsiders in a disused space in the Bowery in downtown Manhattan in late September.

It features artwork satirising American iconography, predominantly by British artists, including Jonathan Yeo, Anthony Micallef and Polly Morgan.

The exhibition was scheduled to last a fortnight but will now close on 31 October.

Twenty thousand people have been through its doors, making it the most popular modern art show in New York, eclipsing the likes of Gilbert and George whose career retrospective is at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.

Buyers include Damien Hirst, who bought leading portrait painter Yeo's picture of Paris Hilton made up of porn images for £40,000. Yeo is also exhibiting artworks of Prime Minister Gordon Brown and US President George Bush comprised of pornographic magazines.

Lazarides, whose previous jobs include processing chickens, is negotiating a permanent New York gallery space to showcase his irreverent work. He told the Standard: "I'm absolutely gobsmacked by the reaction in New York. There is such a wide range of people that have come to the exhibition. That's always been my thing. Art is for a cross-section of society."

Among those who have previously bought art from Lazarides are Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and singer Gwen Stefani.

Works on show in his New York exhibition include Micallef's huge painting Rape In Times Square in which a mass orgy descends on New York's entertainment district, and graffiti artwork depicting presidential hopeful Barack Obama as Superman, Britney Spears as Marilyn Monroe and a Degas crippled dancer.

The graffiti art's thematic similarities to Banksy's work have led to speculation that the art prankster was supporting his agent's gallery in the US but this was denied by Lazarides. He said: "They have got nothing to do with Banksy whatsoever. They are the work of this guy from LA called Mr Brainwash."

Banksy has, however, been creating his trademark rat murals on Manhattan streets in the last fortnight.

Exhibition visitor Sean Leveuser, an English financier who lives on the Upper West Side, said of the show: "It's wonderful to see so much vibrant British modern art outside England."

Speaking about his porn portraits, Yeo, son of the former Tory minister Tim Yeo, told the Standard: "It's really meant to be ironic iconography. These people are in the newspapers every day and become very disposable things. If you do a painting of them it elevates them into immortal status."

His picture of Gordon Brown was inspired by the Prime Minister's reluctance to sit for a portrait. Yeo said: "It's my job as a portrait painter to be needling them. I was most worried about the Bush portrait, but people love it."

The picture of Mr Brown has attracted little interest. Yeo said: "I don't think many people know who he is yet."