shredding

Banksy Claims That Painting Was Supposed to Be Totally Shredded

A few weeks ago, Banksy’s painting Girl With Balloon seemingly self-destructed after being sold at auction for more than $1.2 million at Sotheby’s, as a shredder hidden inside the painting’s frame tore it’s bottom half apart. But in a video Banksy posted to his YouTube, the artist revealed that he’d originally planned for the work to be completely shredded by the frame, meaning the fact that half the painting survived the shredding was a malfunction. “In rehearsals it worked every time,” he wrote. Both Banksy and Sotheby’s have insisted that the auction house didn’t know of the prank in advance, and the winning bidder decided to keep the work, now dubbed Love Is in the Bin. At this point, it’s probably even more valuable as a collector’s item.

Banksy says That Painting Was Meant to Be Totally Shredded