{"id":1768,"date":"2018-10-09T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artsolido.com\/?p=1768"},"modified":"2018-10-09T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T18:00:00","slug":"a-little-piece-of-banksy-genius","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsolido.com\/es\/2018\/10\/09\/a-little-piece-of-banksy-genius\/","title":{"rendered":"A little piece of Banksy genius"},"content":{"rendered":"

A canvas that sold for over a million dollars was shredded by its frame but no one is sure if it was destroyed or simply transformed.<\/h3>\n

By Hrag Vartanian<\/p>\n

A Banksy artwork \u201cself-destructed\u201d at a Friday night Sotheby\u2019s auction in London.<\/p>\n

\u201cGirl with a Balloon\u201d (2006) was the final lot of the evening sale at Sotheby\u2019s and ended things off with an impressive final price of \u00a3953,829 (~$1,251,423), or \u00a31,042,000 with buyer\u2019s premium (~$1,367,104). Maybe people should\u2019ve suspected something was suspicious when the artwork sold for the exact same figure as the artist\u2019s previous auction record in 2008.<\/p>\n

\"Banksy\"
Banksy, Girl with a Balloon (2006)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Robert Casterline of Casterline Goodman gallery was in attendance and told Hyperallergic what happened next. He explained there was \u201ccomplete confusion\u201d and an \u201calarm inside the frame started going off as the gavel went down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201c[It] sold for over a million dollars and as we sat there\u2026the painting started moving,\u201d he said, and added that the painting\u2019s frame, also made by Banksy, acted as a shredder and started to cut the canvas into strips. \u201c[It was] all out confusion then complete excitement,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Anny Shaw of the Art Newspaper spoke to Alex Branczik, the auction house\u2019s head of contemporary art for Europe, who seemed as surprised as anyone. \u201cIt appears we just got Banksy-ed,\u201d he said immediately after the sale. \u201cHe is arguably the greatest British street artist, and tonight we saw a little piece of Banksy genius,\u201d he said, adding that he was \u201cnot in on the ruse.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"banksy-shredder-auction-3\"<\/p>\n

Shaw also reports that there was speculation \u201cthat the elusive artist had himself pressed the button that destroyed the work.\u201d<\/p>\n

But is the work destroyed? Or is it transformed? Even Branczik isn\u2019t sure. \u201cYou could argue that the work is now more valuable,\u201d Branczik said. \u201cIt\u2019s certainly the first piece to be spontaneously shredded as an auction ends.\u201d<\/p>\n

Casterline clearly thought it was all very entertaining. \u201cBanksy did it again to the art market that he so despises,\u201d he said about the latest prank by an artist who continues to mess with the conventions of the art world.<\/p>\n

\"bansky-sothebys\"<\/p>\n

Sotheby\u2019s released a statement to the Financial Times: \u201cWe have talked with the successful purchaser who was surprised by the story. We are in discussion about next steps.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A canvas that sold for over a million dollars was shredded by its frame but no one is sure if it was destroyed or simply transformed. By Hrag Vartanian A Banksy artwork \u201cself-destructed\u201d at a Friday night Sotheby\u2019s auction in London. \u201cGirl with a Balloon\u201d (2006) was the final lot of the evening sale at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142254829,"featured_media":1769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[28094],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-visual-art"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8lHqs-sw","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/artsolido.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/artsolido-mag-cover-b.jpg?fit=2550%2C889&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsolido.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsolido.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsolido.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsolido.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/142254829"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsolido.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1768"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artsolido.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1773,"href":"https:\/\/artsolido.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1768\/revisions\/1773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsolido.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsolido.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsolido.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsolido.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}