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PEOPLE & ARTS Monday 8 october 2018

Banksy artwork self-destructs just after $1.4 million sale

By JILL LAWLESS showed the moment — auction house. Gustav Metzger pioneered
Associated Press and the shocked reaction The auction house said it “auto-destructive art,” cre-
LONDON (AP) — Art prank- of those in the room — with was “in discussion about ating paintings using acid
ster Banksy has struck the words “Going, going, next steps” with the buyer, that ate away the fabric
again. gone...” whose identity was not dis- beneath.
A work by the elusive street A video was later posted closed. Some art-market He also has a penchant for
artist self-destructed in front on the account, stating: watchers say the work elaborate pranks.
of startled auction-goers “A few years ago I secret- could be worth even more In 2005, he hung an image
on Friday, moments after ly built a shredder into a in its shredded state. of a spear-toting ancient
being sold for 1.04 million painting in case it was ever “We have not experienced human pushing a shopping
pounds ($1.4 million). In an put up for auction.” The this situation in the past . cart in the British Museum,
Instagram post Saturday, video showed images of a where a painting sponta- where it remained for sev-
Banksy claimed the dra- shredder being implanted neously shredded, upon eral days before being dis-
matic artistic payoff had into a picture frame along achieving a record for the covered. The next year he
been years in the making. with footage of Friday’s artist,” Branczik said. “We smuggled a life-sized fig-
The spray-painted canvas auction finale. are busily figuring out what In this undated photo ure of a Guantanamo Bay
provided by Sotheby’s the
“Girl With Balloon” went Banksy’s spokeswoman, Jo this means in an auction spray-painted canvas ‘Girl detainee into Disneyland,
under the hammer at So- Brooks, confirmed that the context.” with Balloon’ by artist Banksy is and in 2015 he erected a
theby’s in London, fetch- post was genuine. Geneva-based artist Pierre pictured. full-scale dystopian theme
ing more than three times Sotheby’s — which had Koukjian, who was at the Associated Press park — “Dismaland” — by
its pre-sale estimate and noted before the sale that auction, said the buyer was the confusion of the mo- the British seaside.
equaling a record price for the work’s ornate gilded “very lucky” to own a now- ment. Brooks would not “Girl With Balloon,” which
the artist. frame was “an integral ele- historic piece. He called say whether the artist had depicts a small child reach-
Then, as an alarm sounded, ment of the artwork chosen Banksy’s prank “a turning been at the auction. She ing up toward a heart-
it ran through a shredder by Banksy himself” — ap- point in the history of con- said Sotheby’s had been shaped red balloon, was
embedded in the frame, peared as shocked as any- temporary and concep- “100 percent” unaware of originally stenciled on a
leaving half the canvas one else. tual art.” the planned stunt. wall in east London and
hanging from the bottom “It appears we just got Koukjian, who has met Banksy is not the first artist to has been endlessly repro-
in strips. Banksy-ed,” said Alex Banksy, said he is sure he deconstruct his own work. duced, becoming one
A post on Banksy’s offi- Branczik, head of contem- caught a glimpse of the In the years after World of Banksy’s best-known
cial Instagram account porary European art at the artist in the saleroom amid War II, German-born artist images.q