The Paper's comprehensive report
In October 2018, British graffiti artist Banksy's famous work "Girls and Balloons" was filmed at Sotheby's, and a scene was automatically cut into pieces after being auctioned at a high price. The £1,042,000 painting, which is suspected of being destroyed by the artist himself, has been criticised as one of the most powerful mockeries of the art's control over capital. However, the auction house also said that "the work is actually more precious", perhaps "transformed" into another form.
According to the Guardian, on the evening of October 14, 2021 local time in London, the shredded work was named "Love is in the Bin", which was once again put on Sotheby's auction house and sold for more than 18.5 million pounds, also setting a record for the street artist.
On October 5, 2018, at the "Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Sale" in London, British graffiti artist Banksy's painting "Girls and Balloons" was finally unveiled. After a fierce telephone bidding, the auctioneer knocked down the gavel and the painting sold for £1.042 million. Just as the audience was clapping and celebrating, the picture frame suddenly sounded an alarm bell, and in full view of everyone, the painting in the frame slowly slid down, and the frame built-in shredder cut the painting into shredded pieces of paper. The artist's actions were seen as a protest against the art market.
After Banksy's painting "The Girl and the Balloon" was taken, the painting in the frame slowly slid down and was shredded by the built-in shredder
Later, Banksy shared a photo of the painting cut into shredded pieces of paper on Instagram, along with the caption: "Raise the price, keep raising the price, disappear." Before that, Banks also uploaded a video that clearly documented the entire process of implanting the shredder into the frame. He wrote in the video: "A few years ago I secretly placed a shredder in my work to prevent it from going to auction one day. ”
Although Banks' actions were seen as a protest against the art market, the auction house considered the work to be "transformed" into another form. Previously, Alex Branczik, head of Sotheby's European Contemporary Art Department, said, "You can also say that the work is actually more precious, because it is obviously the first work to be shredded immediately after the auction." ”
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In 2018, Banks "self-destructed" high-priced works. (00:57)
One of Banks' most famous works, The Girl and the Balloon was originally graffiti on the dilapidated wall of a British shopping street, depicting a little girl looking mournfully at a red heart balloon flying away. In 2017, the work participated in a vote to beat Turner, Anthony Gormley and others to top the list of "British Favorite Works of Art".
In 2017, Banksy's street graffiti work , The Girl and the Balloon , topped the "British Favourite Art" list.
After Banks's masterpiece "The Girl and the Balloon" was torn up, it was named "new" "Love is in the Bin". Since March 2019, the work has been loaned to the State Gallery of Stuttgart, Germany.
According to the British "Guardian" news, on the evening of October 14, 2021 local time in London, this "brand new" work "Love is in the Bin", once again appeared at the Sotheby's auction in London, and sold for 18,582,000 pounds, much higher than its guidance price of 4 million to 6 million pounds. For the auction, Breschke said: "It has been almost 3 years since the most ingenious performance art moment of this century. ”
At sotheby's auction house, the staff carries "Love is in the Bin"
According to The Art Newspaper, during the auction, the on-site bidders (3), the telephone bidders (5), and an online bidder competed for 10 minutes. Ultimately, the buyer of the piece was an Asian collector who bought it over the phone through Nick Buckley Wood, Director of Private Sales in Hong Kong, China.
Further reading:
Banks is an anonymous British graffiti artist, activist, film director and painter whose work is world-famous but no one has ever seen him in person. Galleries and museums around the world occasionally hold special exhibitions of his work, his works have set record high prices at auction several times, and the documentaries he directed have been broadcast everywhere, including "Talent Outside the Gallery" was nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary, but he himself almost never appeared in public.
In 2010, Time magazine named Banks one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and when the magazine asked him for a photo, he gave it a picture of the work.
Banksy's themes cover a variety of political and social issues, including anti-war, counter-terrorism, anti-fascism, anti-imperialism, anti-dictatorship, anarchism, nihilism and existentialism, and he often spoofs the roles of the police, soldiers and other symbolic state apparatus, as well as well-known political or public figures, and even painted Queen Elizabeth II of England as an orangutan, thus announcing the coming era of monkey rule over the earth.
In March 2018, Banksy and another graffiti artist worked on a wall in New York city to create a 70-foot-tall mural, The Release of Zera Doan, protesting against the arrest and imprisonment of the female painter.
In addition to his graffiti works, Banksy also had a number of "mischievous acts", including the creation of a large number of counterfeit banknotes with a denomination of 10 pounds, the head of the Queen of England on the banknotes was replaced by the head of Princess Diana, and the words "Bank of England" were replaced by "Banksy of England", which were later sent everywhere as invitations for a ghetto Christmas art exhibition. And set off a boom of about 200 pounds per ticket on the auction network.
Banksy street graffiti works
In addition, Banks has also sneaked into the Louvre in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate Museum of Art in the United Kingdom, etc., swapping world famous paintings for his own spoof paintings, and he has also sneaked into the British Museum and secretly put a stone with a hunter pushing a supermarket shopping cart into it, and there are countless visitors to worship this "cultural relic", and the museum discovered this prank several days later, which was commented as a mockery of his artistic authority.
(This article is a synthesis of previous reports from The Guardian, The Art Newspaper and The Paper.) ）
Editor-in-Charge: Lu Linhan
Proofreader: Luan Meng