[pics] Banksy destroys his own painting with a shredder after selling for over £1 million

[Arthur]

🤣🤣🤣

 

Sources: www.artsy.net/news/artsy-editorial-artwork-banksy-shredded-selling-13-million-sothebys / www.instagram.com/p/BokH84SFncX/

 

An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3 million at Sotheby’s

Banksy’s iconic Girl With Balloon (2006) attracted feverish bidding in the room and on the phones, racing past its high estimate of £300,000 to hammer at £860,000, or just over £1 million ($1.3 million with fees). As the gavel slammed, a siren rang out through the salesroom and everyone stood stunned as the Banksy canvas slid through the frame that it was contained in and emerged underneath—but shredded.

 

It seems that the art world’s biggest prankster concocted a scheme in which his work would get destroyed as soon as it was sold. The spray painted work of the girl with a red balloon, acquired directly from the artist, came in what the catalogue called “the artist’s frame”—a frame that was oddly thick for such a small work of street art.

 

A source at Sotheby’s, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that the Banksy camp had insisted on securing an unusually high number of seats for the sale. Some onlookers reported seeing one of these people with a device in his hand after the shredding happened, and that he was detained by security as he tried to leave.

 

"We have not experienced a work spontaneously shredding after it sells for a million pounds", Sotheby’s Europe head of Contemporary Art, Alex Branczik said at the press conference.

 

He absolutely denied any knowledge that such an act was coming.

 

“We got Banksy’d,” he said.

 

Before

 

 

After

 

 

[elsiegee40]

You have to admire his style!

[fiza]

Apparently worth more now in its shredded state.

[Arthur]

Banksy posted a video to his Instagram account showing the shredder inside the frame...

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/BomXijJhArX/ (Direct Link)

 

[grahamd22]

but who activated it ....?

[jthompson]

Would be interested in a proper teardown of that frame and to know how long it had been dormant for.

 

That particular artwork may well jump in value, but I wonder whether Sotherby's and the like would want to auction another Banksy ever again.

[AMLinington]

Would be interested in a proper teardown of that frame and to know how long it had been dormant for.

 

That particular artwork may well jump in value, but I wonder whether Sotherby's and the like would want to auction another Banksy ever again.

 

Certainly not in 'Artist's own frame', that's for sure!

 

Although that being said, Banksy is all about the subversion, so really, him shredding his own artwork only adds to it's statement - he's making a statement about the art world, and so that statement and the shredded painting becomes almost a kind of 'performance art' or 'interactive installation'. Yes, on the face of it shredding something someone has paid so much money for seems like he's destroying it, but it's more like a phased development of the work. So to speak.

[hardtailstar]

Sotheby's has surely got to be in on it.

 

Lots of speculation that Banksy was there too

[Garacesh]

Story is it was supposed to be torn entirely to pieces, and yes, it was triggered by someone in the auction room.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-45900314

 

The partial shredding of a Banksy artwork didn't go entirely to plan, the artist has confirmed.

[...]

The video also shows new footage from inside the auction room - including a clip of the button which triggered the shredding being pressed.

[...]

Alex Branczik, Sotheby's head of contemporary art in Europe, has also reiterated in a new interview that the auction house was not in on the stunt.

He said the reason the shredder wasn't detected by Sotheby's staff is they had been instructed the frame was a key part of the work.

[...]

Asked how the conservator did not spot the frame's double thickness and apparent weight from the attached shredder, he replied: "You address what you see, it was more like a sculpture. If it says the frame is integral, you don't rip it apart."

 

[steveg]

 

 

17 seconds in, must have asbestos fingers!

 

Steve