Culture Banksy artwork shreds itself after sale - Best troll confirmed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-45770028

A stencil spray painting by elusive artist Banksy shredded itself after it was sold for more than £1m.

The framed Girl With Balloon, one of the artist's best known works, was auctioned by Sotheby's in London.

The piece which shows a girl reaching towards a heart-shaped balloon was the final work sold at the auction.

However, moments after the piece went under the hammer, the canvas passed through a shredder that was hidden inside the frame.

Posting a picture of the moment on Instagram, Banksy wrote: "Going, going, gone..."

The 2006 piece sold for £1.042m on Friday night.

"It appears we just got Banksy-ed," said Alex Branczik, Sotheby's senior director and head of contemporary art in Europe.

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There was speculation on social media that the prank may have actually caused the artwork to increase in value.

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Banksy came to prominence through a series of graffiti pieces across the country.

The enigmatic artist is thought to have grown up in Bristol, but his identity has remained a secret despite much speculation over the years.

Among his recent works was the 2015 opening of Dismaland, a Disneyland-esque theme park which he described as a "family theme park unsuitable for children".

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In 2017, Girl With Balloon, which originally appeared on a wall in Great Eastern Street, London, was voted the nation's favourite artwork..

The gallery version featured spray paint and acrylic on canvas, mounted on a board.

Step your game up lads, this is best pronk of 2018 so far!

 

[Slap47]

I was expecting the article to mention some kind of outrage from the buyer. I have too much faith in the art world.

The whole point of the art world is..

haha, yeah, I'm in on it guys

 

[ZehnBoat]

lol people getting mad at banksy or trying to figure out his agenda instead of just laughing at his humor.

also is it worth more now? now that it's attached to an infamous prank?
is the indestructible object worth more than the object to be destroyed?

 

[Slap47]

lol people getting mad at banksy or trying to figure out his agenda instead of just laughing at his humor.

also is it worth more now? now that it's attached to an infamous prank?
is the indestructible object worth more than the object to be destroyed?

It bursts into flames the second time its sold.

 

[Coconut Gun]

All modern art is trash.

 

[ES 148]

inb4 Banksy sneaks into the new owner's house and duct-tapes it back together

 

[Goofy Logic]

Okay, that is pretty cool. If you can elicit a response of "how did he do that!?" from everybody regardless of the context of what happened, then you are a master of art.

 

[ZehnBoat]

It bursts into flames the second time its sold.

i would have just rigged it so it played a clip of someone yelling "HAHA YOU PAYED HOW MUCH FOR MY CRAP? YOU DUMB FUCK" over and over for several hours

 

[Lipitor]

Lol how do so many people on a troll forum, not see the beauty of this?

He got a bunch of rich doucheholes who pretend to care about about art to fight over his piece using their money... then destroyed it so no one could have it. It's a statement about how you can't quantify the value of his art with money. It was a massive fucking diss to the art collector's world.

 

[Kosher Dill]

The joke's on Banksy, the new owner's going to turn around and sell each one of those shredded strips for $1 million each.

One of those strips will, in turn, be mounted in a shredder.

 

[KimCoppolaAficionado]

Or "a fool and his money are easily parted." I dunno much 'bout Banksy, but a lot of people will pay for "privileges." All he's doing here and in the incident you described is taking the piss on that.

Exactly. Rich dudes who buy art generally don't actually CARE that much about the art; it's about being able to say "I'm rich and cultured enough to buy this artist's work." He's fucking with them by going "congrats, you can say you bought the art. You don't actually want this art anyways, so I'll just get rid of it for you."

 

[Fareal]

I laughed my arse off when I heard about this.

I also desperately want the theory that Banksy is actually Robert Del Naja to be true.

 

[Shick]

The full video is in the article and on Banksy's Instagram page, but this is the relevant bit.

 

[Racist Trash]

I mean it didn't burn it just got shredded and it jammed so it still works as something you can put on your wall + the piece now has massive publicity meaning it's price will increase because people like buying famous things from the news.

Edit: I would actually like to have the jammed work more than the original just because it's different and it reminds me that shredders always find a way to jam.

 

[sasazuka]

I've seen claims that the picture was put into the frame pre-shredded, though only halfway, and the shredder noise was faked.

Quite obviously someone at the auction was in on it to turn on a switch or plug it in or something as I can't imagine that the battery within the frame could hold enough charge to stay on standby mode for years just to wait for the signal to shred.

 

[XYZpdq]

The whole point of the art world is..

I've heard no small part is money laundering.

 

[Dysnomia]

Art is fucking trash. No one has gotten the hint yet.

All the great painters died hundreds of years ago. Now we have pretentious trolls with self shredding artwork. I can't decide if that's amazing or retarded.

 

[polonium]

I've heard no small part is money laundering.

Or investments

 

[Slamerella]

lol people getting mad at banksy or trying to figure out his agenda instead of just laughing at his humor.

also is it worth more now? now that it's attached to an infamous prank?
is the indestructible object worth more than the object to be destroyed?

It's a prank and also a huge one at that. I'd say it's valued the same but even then, this is monumental. Banksy is a shitposter in real life.

 

[Fareal]

This hilarious salt is mostly coming from the same quarters that spewed salt when the Chapmans bought a bunch of Goyas and drew on them, and for the same reasons.

There were multiple copies of the Goya prints on the go, the screeching about Insult To Injury was based not on the loss of the Goyas to the world as art, but the way the Chapmans fucked up the market for sets of Disasters Of War.

The art market is a grotesquerie of oligarchs and arms dealers engaged in the twin aims of money laundering and dick waving. And then they don’t loan anything for public exhibition, which as a gallery sperg, pisses me off immensely.

 

[Francis E. Dec Esc.]

To shreds, you say.