On 5 October 2018, Girl with Balloon became Love is in the Bin in front of an astonished and shocked audience, when street artist Banksy destroyed his recently auctioned work from afar.
Banksy's popular motif Girl with Balloon, which had appeared for the first time as graffiti on walls in London a few years earlier, was presented as one of the lots at Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Auction. Despite being one of Banksy's most beloved designs, and one that was ubiquitous, this spray-acrylic paint artwork, enclosed in a frame provided by the artist himself, was valued at £200,000-300,000 by the auction house.
See also: Get to Know Banksy’s Art Dealer: Interview
But the frame hid a secret, which came to light immediately after the winning bid (at £1.04 million): a remote-controlled shredder in the lower part of the frame was used to neatly cut Girl with Balloon into strips in front of the auction room.
See also: The Art World’s Best Kept Secret
Sotheby's claimed not to have known about this plan. But could the work of art still be sold to the highest bidder under these circumstances? The buyer, a European private collector, said yes. She now owned a work of art that was not only a one-off piece by one of the most popular contemporary artists, but had also made auction history. She left it on permanent loan to the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart in March 2019. Shortly after the sensational sale, it was also suspected that the work of art that Banksy renamed Love is in the Bin had increased in value.
This is the conclusion reached by Sotheby's in London, where Banksy's shredded work will go under the hammer again during their Contemporary Art Evening Auction on 14 October, or rather for the first time under the name Love is in the Bin. The estimated price is now around £4-6 million.
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