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A painting by mysterious British artist Banksy shred itself into pieces at the moment it had sold for more than 1 million pounds ($1.86 million) at a London auction.
Onlookers gasped and laughed after the bottom half of “Girl with Balloon”, one of Banksy’s best-known works, was sucked into a shredder hidden in its frame as the hammer fell, auction house Sotheby’s said.
“It appears we just got Banksy-ed,” Alex Branczik, senior director and head of contemporary art, said in a statement on Sotheby’s website.
Banksy himself posted an Instagram picture of shocked attendees watching the painting disintegrate.
“Going, going, gone …,” he wrote.
Sotheby’s said it was “certainly” the first time a work of art started to shred itself after coming under the hammer.
Video footage showed two men taking the painting away shortly after the sale, with parts of the image hanging down from the bottom of the frame in strips.
The auction house said it was “in discussion about next steps” with the buyer.
Some art-market watchers have suggested the work could be worth even more in its shredded state.
“We have not experienced this situation in the past where a painting spontaneously shredded, upon achieving a record for the artist,” Mr Branczik said.
“We are busily figuring out what this means in an auction context.”
Banksy, whose real identity is unknown, is known for sharply ironic outdoor graffiti with political themes.
His work has appeared at sites including Israel’s barrier at the West Bank and also at Disneyland, where he painted a life-size figure of a Guantanamo Bay detainee.
Once a small-time graffiti artist from the English city of Bristol, Banksy’s work has become hugely valuable.
AP/Reuters
Topics: contemporary-art, performance-art, street-art, visual-art, offbeat, united-kingdom
