Watch: Artist Banksy shreds £ 953,829-painting, possibly making it more valuable
‘The shredding is now part of the integral artwork.’
By now, the shredding of the iconoclastic artist Banksy’s ironically iconic – one of many – 2006 painting Girl With A Balloon immediately after it was sold for £ 953,829 at a Sotheby’s auction has become a celebrated moment of global art. As the video above reveals, Banksy has built the shredding mechanism into the painting, and only had to ensure that it was triggered at the appropriate moment.
But that does not mean the painting has now become worthless. Just the opposite, in fact.
“You could argue that the work is now more valuable,” Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art, Europe, told The Art Newspaper. “It’s certainly the first piece to be spontaneously shredded as an auction ends.”