Banksy's work sold for more than a million euros and self-destructed

A canvas version of the "Girl with Balloon" is out of its frame to go into a shredder, taking everyone short.

Awarded ... destroyed! A canvas version of the famous Girl with a balloon by street artist Banksy was on sale on Friday, October 5, at Sotheby's in London. But to everyone's surprise, just after being sold for 1.04 million pounds (1.18 million euros), the painting, spray painted and acrylic, came out of its frame, passing by a chipper hidden in it. "Sotheby's has been Banksé," writes the auction house said in a statement (in English). Sotheby's writes that this is an "unexpected" event.

Banksy strikes again: one of his paintings is self-destruct

Banksy all spit: a painting of the mysterious and facetious street-artist British partially self-destroyed Friday night in front of a public dumbfounded just after being auctioned for more than a million euros at Sotheby's in London.

"It looks like we just got + Banker +," reacted Alex Branczik, a manager of the auction house, in a statement.

The surrealist scene takes place at the end of a sale of several lots of contemporary art at Sotheby's, one of the oldest and largest auction houses in the world.

Videos posted on social networks show the public react with amazement and amusement, immortalizing the moment by strafing photos of the jagged canvas, while two employees of the auction house approach it to win.

An artist very critical of the art market

On Instagram, the artist published a photo of this moment that took everyone short, with a simple comment: "Going, going, gone ..." In French: "Adjug, disappeared ..." Is it about 'a joke? Was there only one buyer for this painting? The original work appeared for the first time on a wall in London in 2006, and the subversive Banksy has often criticized the establishment. and the market of art. This self-destruction thus bears all the traces of his sarcasm.

Banksy's painting is destroyed a few moments after being sold for $ 1.4 million at auction in London

The hammer has just closed the sale of the work - a reproduction in acrylic and aerosol paint of one of the most famous images of Banksy, "Girl with Balloon", showing a little girl letting fly a balloon red heart-shaped - that sounds an intermittent alarm, coming from the frame.
The public then turns to the painting, hanging on one of the walls of the auction room, and discovers the painting is partially cut into thin slices by a concealed paper mill, according to Sotheby's, in a thick golden frame .. the final result revealing the latter half empty, the cut part of the canvas hanging below.

At the end of this resounding happening, which was Saturday among the topics most discussed on social networks in the United Kingdom, the table - and its shredder - could ultimately be even more expensive, said Alex Branczik.

It is "certainly the first time in the history of the auction that a work of art shreds automatically after being under the hammer," said the auction house.
Videos posted on social networks show people in the audience react with amazement and amusement, immortalizing the moment by strafing photos and filming the jagged paint, while two employees of the auction house approach it to prevail.

Banksy himself commented on the coup on his Instagram account by publishing a photo of the painting, ironically accompanied by the caption: "Sold sold ...".

This message, and the fact that a mysterious man wearing a hat and sunglasses was seen near the entrance to Sotheby's shortly after the sale, fueled speculation about the possibility that the star of contemporary art might have been present.

While the British specialized press also questioned a possible complicity of Sotheby's, Alex Branczik, quoted by the website The Art Newspaper, assured not to have been warned of the hoax, the auction house remains unreachable Saturday for comment further on this "unexpected incident".

The work was sold at 1,042 million pounds ($ 1.708 million), an amount of the artist's record level, achieved at an auction in 2008, according to Sotheby's.

"We spoke with the buyer, who was surprised by this story. We are in discussion about the next steps, "said the auction house in a statement in the Financial Times.

This sale should further strengthen the mythology Banksy, graffiti artist and painter from Bristol (South West England), who likes to keep his identity secret. The artist became known for his ironic and committed urban art, and some of his creations were auctioned off for dizzying amounts.
He recently reacted to Brexit on a wall in Dover, UK, with the fresco of a man breaking a European flag star with a chisel.

According to Mehdi Ben Cheikh, Parisian street art specialist, this new achievement is "in the same vein as his performance in New York, which questions and criticizes the limits of the art market."
It was in 2013 and the artist then set up a stand near Central Park, to sell about twenty paintings "authentic and signed" for ... 60 dollars.