BANKSY ‘RIP’-OFF
Auction self-shred a $1M prank stunner
This art will self-destruct in three, two, one . . .
A work by street artist Banksy shredded itself after being auctioned off for $1.4 million at Sotheby’s in London — and the buyer may be left holding the scraps.
Just after bids closed for the spraypainted canvas Friday night, an alarm sounded and the piece fell through a shredder the artist secretly built into the picture frame, slicing “Girl with Balloon” into strips that dropped from the bottom of the work.
Later that day, a photo showing shocked onlookers at the renowned auction house appeared on Banksy’s Instagram account (above) with the caption “Going, going gone . . .”
A video posted on the account Saturday shows a mystery man in a hoodie installing the shredder into the frame.
“A few years ago I secretly built a shredder into a painting,” reads a message appearing on the screen.
Video posted on Twitter shows a man pressing a button that could have remotely activated the shredder.
The Daily Mail speculated it could be the elusive Bansky himself, documenting his prank.
The bigwigs at Sotheby’s said they were “in discussion about next steps” with the buyer.
“It appears we just got Banksy-ed,” said Alex Branczik, head of contemporary European art at Sotheby’s.
“We have not experienced this situation in the past, where a painting spontaneously shredded,” Branczik said.
“We are busily figuring out what this means in an auction context.”
But Joey Syer, co-founder of MyArtBroker, told the British newspaper that the work’s value could more than double thanks to the stunt.
“This is now part of art history in its shredded state, and we’d estimate Banksy has added at a minimum 50 percent increase to its value,” he said.
Banksy keeps his identity secret despite a high-profile career as an artist — and a prankster.