LONDON (AP) — Art prankster Banksy has struck again.
A work by the elusive street artist apparently self-destructed in front of startled auction-goers on Friday, moments after being sold for 1.04 million pounds ($1.4 million).
The spray-painted canvas “Girl With Balloon” went under the hammer at Sotheby’s in London, fetching more than three times its pre-sale estimate and equaling a record price for the artist.
Then, as an alarm sounded, it ran through a shredder embedded in the frame, emerging from the bottom in strips.
A post on Banksy’s official Instagram account showed the moment — and the shocked reaction of those in the room — with the words “Going, going, gone…”
Sotheby’s — which had noted before the sale that the work’s ornate gilded frame was “an integral element of the artwork chosen by Banksy himself” — expressed surprise at the incident.
“It appears we just got Banksy-ed,” said Alex Branczik, head of contemporary European art at the auction house.
The auction house said it was “in discussion about next steps” with the buyer. Some art-market watchers have suggested the work could be worth even more in its shredded state.
“We have not experienced this situation in the past . where a painting spontaneously shredded, upon achieving a record for the artist,” Branczik said. “We are busily figuring out what this means in an auction context.”
Banksy is not the first artist to deconstruct his own work. In the years after World War II, German-born artist Gustav Metzger pioneered “auto-destructive art,” creating paintings using acid that ate away the fabric beneath.
Banksy, who has never disclosed his full identity, began his career spray-painting buildings in Bristol, England, and has become one of the world’s best-known artists. His mischievous and often satirical images include two policemen kissing, armed riot police with yellow smiley faces and a chimpanzee with a sign bearing the words “Laugh now, but one day I’ll be in charge.”
He also has a penchant for elaborate pranks.
In 2005, he hung an image of a spear-toting ancient human pushing a shopping cart in the British Museum, where it remained for several days before being discovered. The next year he smuggled a life-sized figure of a Guantanamo Bay detainee into Disneyland, and in 2015 he erected a full-scale dystopian theme park — “Dismaland” — by the British seaside.
“Girl With Balloon,” which depicts a small child reaching up toward a heart-shaped red balloon, was originally stenciled on a wall in east London and has been endlessly reproduced, becoming one of Banksy’s best-known images.
Do pretentious people really pay that kind of money for recently created “art?”
Am off to learn more about Banksey.
Pure genius.
Annnnnnd, it’s gone…
We fund lots of public art in this country so I think we should commission Bansky to make a similar piece for the Smithsonian. The only difference is that rather than using his “Girl with a Balloon” art piece he could use the US Constitution. We no longer seem to need it.
Sabo does better work.
Everyone was surprised because nobody noticed or questioned the blocky, oversize wooden frame.
A huge surprise.
I have that on a 10 pound note, girl with balloon. Supposedly a banksy. I wonder if it has any value.
Yes; it’s worth 10 pounds.
So nothing eh? I’m not going back there. Ireland was the best part of that trip. England proper was rather shitty. Prolly worse now. Alot can happen in 6 years.
Laughing Squid shows this event from a different slant.
So we’re supposed to believe that Sotheby’s accepted this consignment, inspected it and put up for auction and then”sold” this piece without anyone inspecting the canvas and frame? It was just a big surprise? And it was powered by what, exactly? And it was turned on, how? What a pant load.
This is the kind of crap people fall for when they are drunk or stupid and yet not one single person in any media source has even thought to question this obvious bullshit story?
I’m stunned by how docile and naive people are and how utterly ignorant they must think the rest of the population is.
Wow.
I hadn’t thought of it that way ….. you make sense.
But why would the media be pushing this story so hard? Sotheby’s has nothing to gain, they were embarrassed.
Cui bono?
It was a planned gimmick and they were in on it, probably the buyer as well.
From the Daily Mail-
‘The auction result will only propel this further and given the media attention this stunt has received, the lucky buyer would see a great return on the £1.04million they paid last night.
‘This is now part of art history in its shredded state and we’d estimate Banksy has added at a minimum 50% increase to it’s value, possibly as high as being worth £2million plus.’
The fruits of kleptocracy.