Banksy’s Girl with a Balloon was cut into pieces by a shredder installed in the frame just after the work was sold at Sotheby’s for £1.4 million ($1.4 million).
The painting was the final lot at the action on October 5, the Arts Newspaper writes. The self-destruction started moments after the hammer came down for the piece. The process was accompanied with an alarm sound, Meduza reports with a link to the Art Newspaper.
Girl with a Balloon is one of Banksy’s most famous works. The version put up for auction was a 2006 canvas created using spray paint and acrylic. According to the lot description on Sotheby's website, the painting was offered for sale in the original frame.
“It appears we just got Banksy-ed,” Alex Branczik, the auction house’s head of contemporary art, commented on the stunt. “We are busy figuring out what this means in an auction context. The shredding is now part of the integral art work,” he added.
Banksy posted a photo of the action on Instagram, likely the artist’s only official account on social media, with the caption “Going, going, gone …”
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