Love is in the Bin

Banksy made another of his brilliant things, and this once again has caught the imagination of art lovers, creative minds, great brands and common people. From digital artists or artisans who played around with the Girl with Balloon by mocking and miniaturizing the art performance, to sellers wondering if they shredded their Girl with Balloon print, would it double their value also.

This is what happened to MyArtBroker.com which received a seller enquiry via their website from someone who has taken it upon themselves to shred their own print in order to increase its value: “They have taken a piece of art worth roughly £40,000 and in our opinion made its value £1.”

Last week, a framed copy of Banksy’s famous Girl with Balloon work self-shredded just moments after being auctioned for $1.4 million at Sotheby’s. The shredding — which some speculate Sotheby’s was in on — transformed the print into performance art, which then made it the most expensive piece of performance art ever sold at auction. According to The Verge, “here’s the difference — if Banksy decides to shred his piece in a very specific setting at a very specific time in order to add additional context, then that act becomes a part of the work. If you decide to shred your own Banksy piece because you want to imitate Banksy and potentially make more money, you’re an idiot who destroyed a famous artist’s work.”

The entire performance was thrown into doubt by an artist and blacksmith, Josh Gilbert, who noticed that something doesn’t add up in it: “I’m a maker, so the way it was presented as being constructed struck a sour note with me. I re-watched it several times, and looked at stills, and it just didn’t make sense as a machine designed to shred a painting. I’m also a magician, and when I started looking at it as a performance rather than a documentation, that’s when it really clicked.”

Shortly after the auction, Sotheby’s announced that the painting was renamed by Banksy’s representatives from Girl with Balloon to Love is in the Bin. It’s “the first artwork in history to have been created live during an auction,” as Sotheby’s called it in a statement.