Cast your minds back to 2018, when Banksy blew up the contemporary art world once again by selling one of his most-famous artworks – ‘Girl With Balloon’ – which shredded itself after the auction was won. Now, three years later, the semi-destroyed art piece has re-sold at auction this week for over AUD $30million.
If you haven’t seen the video of the original artwork self-destructing seconds after it sold at the auction for AUD$1.7m, please take a moment to watch, and then re-watch just to look at everyone’s faces when they realise what the fuck has just happened.
Ah, god. What a moment in time. A truly massive “fuck you” to the art collecting community and the commodification of art, and an utterly Banksy thing to do, really.
When it happened, Banksy confirmed that nobody at the auction house knew it would self-destruct as soon as it was sold, so all of the reactions in that video are very fucking real. Imagine being one of the auction house workers and suddenly one of the most prized pieces of contemporary art just gets ruined on your watch.
I’d simply die.
Following the shredding heard around the planet, it was suddenly seen as a stunning performance piece by the art world. The value of the artwork skyrocketed, and now it’s sold for oodles more than it did three years ago.
The New York Times reported that the artwork (now called ‘Love Is in the Bin’) was expected to go at auction between $7.4m and $11.02m this week, but after nine competitive bidders, it was sold once again to a telephone bidder for AUD$34.2m (18.6m pounds).
Watch it go to auction below, the auctioneer’s nerves are beyond palpable.
Bloody hell that’s a couple of quid.
The monster sale of the half-fucked artwork has become the most expensive Banksy piece ever sold at auction, eclipsing ‘Devolved Parliament’, which was sold by Sothesby’s for AUD$16.3m back in 2019.
Fuck me, Banksy must be absolutely loving it sick.
