The buyer, who is known only as a female European collector and longtime client of the auction house, said: ‘When the hammer came down last week and the work was shredded, I was at first shocked, but gradually I began to realize that I would end up with my own piece of art history.’ The artwork has been granted a new certificate of authentication by the artist’s studio. Banksy's painting was meant to be shredded completely 'Girl with Balloon,' now renamed 'Love Is in the Bin,' was meant to be destroyed entirely, but the frame malfunctioned at Sotheby's auction. No sooner did the gavel come down to mark the sale of Banks. Sotheby’s said last week that the buyer had decided to keep the partially shredded artwork, now renamed Love is in the Bin (2018). Art connoisseurs could only watch in horror as an expensive piece was shredded before their eyes. ‘Pest Control said very clearly: the frame is integral to the artwork, which it was, just not in the sort of way that we thought,’ Branczik said. Branczik said that the auction house asked the artist’s studio Pest Control if the frame could be removed, but the request was refused. Sotheby’s head of contemporary art in Europe Alex Branczik said that the sale of the work included stipulations that it be placed in the evening sale, and hung in the room. In an interview with The Art Newspaper, Sotheby’s staffers maintained that they had not been in on the stunt. And it also includes footage from the evening of the auction, with the button pressed on a remote control, triggering the concealed shredder. But now the artist says that the entire artwork was supposed to shred.Ī video titled ‘Shred the Love (the director’s cut)’ released by the enigmatic street artist shows a ‘test run’ with the artwork fully destroyed, accompanied by the caption, ‘In rehearsals, it worked every time.’ The film shows the rigged frame, with a secret shredder embedded inside, being constructed in Banksy’s studio. In the video 'Shredding the Girl and Balloon - The Director's half cut' posted to Banksy's YouTube channel on Wednesday, it is revealed that the shredding mechanism worked perfectly during other. Girl with Balloon (2006) appeared to drop from its faux-gilt frame, shredding over half of itself into ribbons, just after selling for GBP£860,000. It was this friend who put it up for auction.) The video showed images of the shredder being implanted into the picture frame. Barker, the auctioneer and Sotheby’s European chairman, said, “It’s a brilliant Banksy moment, this.The partial self-destruction of a Banksy painting at a Sotheby’s auction in London last week was the result of a misfire, the artist has claimed. Brooks, Banksy’s public relations manager.Īs the artwork shredded itself, a seemingly unperturbed Mr. “We never comment on identity issues,” said Ms. Banksy and the Gunningham family in Bristol have denied the connection.
In 2008, the newspaper The Mail on Sunday suggested that Banksy was in fact Robin Gunningham, who was born in Bristol in the west of England and dropped out of private school at age 16 to dabble in street art, a theory for which academic researchers have found corroboration. The identity of the artist remains a secret. Recently he delivered perhaps his most famous artwork, protesting against the commodification of art by very publicly having his own work shredded at auction. The prank was one of several recorded in his best-selling book “Wall and Piece.” The following year, he left an inflatable doll dressed as a Guantánamo Bay prisoner in Disneyland. Banksy posted a photo of his creation to Instagram in mid-shred.
In 2005, the artist hung one of his “modified canvases,” showing a 19th-century beauty wearing a 20th-century gas mask, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for two hours. The Banksy painting of 'Girl with Balloon' sold for 1.4 million just before it was destroyed by a shredder hidden in the frame. They must have known.”įor more than a decade, Banksy has created headlines with his daring, politically subversive artistic stunts. “And Sotheby’s let a man with a bag into the building.
“If it had been offered earlier in the sale, it would have caused disruption and sellers would have complained about that,” Ms.