Banksy has performed what can be one of the most audacious pranks in art history, arranging for one of his exceptionally regarded works to self-destruct after being bought at auction for just over £1 million.
Girl With Balloon became the final item in an auction at Sotheby’s in London on Friday night, and its sale fee equaled the artist’s previous auction record of £1.04m.
Shortly after, the hammer came down on the item, but the canvas started to pass through a shredder hooked up in the body.
Banksy published a photograph on Instagram of the shredded work dangling from the bottom of the body with the name “Going, going, long past …
It seems we got Banksy-ed,” said Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s senior director and head of current artwork in Europe.
Sotheby’s said in an announcement to the Financial Times: “We have talked with the successful client who became amazed by using the story. We are in a dialogue about the next steps.”
The public sale house declined to disclose the identity of the customer.
It is unclear whether the prank can have destroyed or improved the price of the work.
The website MyArtBroker.com, which resells Banksy portions, said Girl with Balloon had seen an annual increase in price of about 20% in recent years. “Prices now are often exceeding £a 000 for signed, authenticated prints,” said its co-founder, Joey Syer.
“The auction result will most effectively propel this further, and given the media interest this stunt has obtained, the fortunate buyer might see a brilliant return on the £1.02m they paid last night.
“This is now part of artwork records in its shredded state, and we’d estimate Banksy has delivered at a minimal 50% of its fee, possibly as high as being worth £2m plus.”
Girl With Balloon, which turned into the closing 12 months voted the United Kingdom’s most loved artwork, first appeared on a wall in Great Eastern Street in Shoreditch, east London. The 2006 gallery version featured spray paint and acrylic on canvas, mounted on board.
The real identity of the Bristol-born artist has never been officially discovered, no matter the colossal speculation.
He rose to repute with graffiti that appeared on buildings throughout the UK, frequently marked by using deeply satirical undertones.
Announcing the new works of art in a sequence of Instagram posts, the artist stated: “Major new Basquiat show opens at the Barbican – a place that is usually very keen to erase any graffiti from its walls.” The work has been blanketed with the aid of perspex panes.
One of Banksy’s more intricate jokes got here just over three years ago while he opened Disneyland, a “family theme park suitable for small children”, on the seafront at Weston-super-Mare.
Online Banking Has Changed the World
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Keep the downloaded statements in a backup pressure like a flash drive or a CD and keep that separate from your laptop. You ought to even print them out and file them if you want. But by no means print out a bank statement, only to throw it out un-shredded into the trash. If you need to take away touchy documents, please shred them nicely.
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