Banksy has played what could be one of the most audacious stunts in art history, arranging for one of his best-known works to self-destruct after being sold at auction for just over 1m.
Girl With Balloonwas the final item in an auction at Sotheby’s in London on Friday night and its sale price equaled the artist’s previous auction record of 1.04m.
Shortly after the hammer came down on the item, however, the canvas began to pass through a shredder installed in the frame.
Banksy posted an image on Instagram of the shredded work dangling from the bottom of the frame with the title “Going, going, gone … ”
"It appears we just got Banksy-ed,” said Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s senior director and head of contemporary art in Europe.
Sotheby’s said in a statement to the Financial Times: “We have talked with the successful purchaser who was surprised by the story. We are in discussion about next steps.”
The auction house declined to reveal the identity of the buyer.
On Saturday evening, Banksy posted a video on his Instagram page which showed a shredder being fitted to the frame of the painting.
It opened with the caption: “A few years ago, I secretly built a shredder into a painting.”
The clip shows a hooded figure putting the finishing touches on the device, before text appears on the screen saying: “In case it was ever put up for auction.”
The website MyArtBroker.com, which resells Banksy pieces, said Girl with Balloonhad enjoyed annual increases in value of about 20% in recent years. “Prices now are regularly exceeding 115,000 for signed authenticated prints,” said its co-founder Joey Syer.
"The auction result will only propel this further and given the media attention this stunt has received, the lucky buyer would see a great return on the 1.02m they paid last night.
"This is now part of art history in its shredded state and we’d estimate Banksy has added at a minimum 50% to its value, possibly as high as being worth 2m plus.”
Girl With Balloon, which was last year voted the UK’s best-loved work of art, first appeared on a wall in Great Eastern Street in Shoreditch, east London. The 2006 gallery version featured spray paint and acrylic on canvas, mounted on a board.
The true identity of the Bristol-born artist has never been officially revealed despite wide speculation.
He rose to fame with graffiti that appeared on buildings across the UK, often marked by deeply satirical undertones.
Two new artworks appeared at the Barbican Centre in central London in September 2017 inspired by an upcoming Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition.
Announcing the new artworks in a series of Instagram posts, the artist said: “Major new Basquiat show opens at the Barbican – a place that is normally very keen to clean any graffiti from its walls.” The work has since been protected by perspex panes.
One of Banksy’s more elaborate jokes came just over three years ago when he opened Dismaland, a “family theme park unsuitable for small children”, on the seafront at Weston-super-Mare.
The Guardiandescribed it at the time as “sometimes hilarious, sometimes eye-opening and occasionally breathtakingly shocking”.
班克西上演了艺术史上最胆大包天的一出好戏：在自己最著名的一幅画作被拍卖出超100万英镑的价格后，他让这部作品瞬间自毁。《女孩与气球》是上周五晚苏富比伦敦拍卖会的最后一件拍卖品，拍出的价格与班克西上一次拍卖纪录持平，达到104万英镑（940万元人民币）。然而，刚刚落锤成交，框内画作就开始下滑，画框内置碎纸机把画作切割成纸条。班克西在Ins上传了一张照片，照片上这幅被切碎的画作在画框底部摇摇欲坠，同时他还配文：“加价、继续加价、消失了……”
苏富比拍卖行的高级主管、欧洲当代艺术部总监艾利克斯·布兰克奇克说：“看上去我们被班克西恶搞了一把。”苏富比拍卖行在《金融时报》上的一则声明中表示：“拍下画作的买家得知此事后很吃惊。我们已经与其进行了商谈，正在讨论接下来的处理办法。”苏富比拒绝透露买家的身份。上周六晚，班克西在自己的Ins页面上传了一个视频，视频中显示一个碎纸机被安装在画框中。视频开头的字幕写道：“几年前，我秘密在画框中安装了一个碎纸机。” 视频中，一个身穿连帽衣的人正在对碎纸机做最后的操作，之后屏幕上出现了一句话：“以防这幅画有一天被拍卖。
转售班克西画作的网站MyArtBroker.com表示，近些年来，《女孩与气球》的价值逐年上涨20%。该网站的联合创始人乔伊·赛尔说：“有班克西签名并经过鉴定的画作现在卖价通常都会超过11.5万英镑。”这一拍卖结果只会让班克西作品价值进一步上涨。考虑到这个惊人举动引发的媒体关注，这名幸运的买家可能会因当晚付出的102万英镑而获得丰厚回报。”“这件被粉碎的艺术品现在已经成了艺术史的一部分，我们估计班克西此举至少让其升值50%，市值将超过200万英镑。”去年《女孩与气球》被票选为英国最受喜爱的艺术品，这幅画作首次出现在伦敦东部肖迪奇区大东方街道的墙面上。2006年用喷漆和丙烯酸树脂漆在画布上再次创作的这幅作品放入画框在美术馆内进行展示。
尽管有各种各样的猜测，但这位出生于布里斯托尔的艺术家的真实身份从未被正式披露。他因为在英国各地的建筑上涂鸦而声名鹊起，作品通常带有深刻的讽刺意味。2017年9月，受到即将举行的涂鸦艺术家让·米歇尔·巴斯奎特艺术展的启发，班克西的两幅新画作出现在伦敦中部的巴比肯艺术中心。班克西在Ins上陆续发文宣布了自己新作品的亮相，并写道：“在巴比肯艺术中心举行大型巴斯奎特新画展，而巴比肯通常都会迫不及待地将任何涂鸦从墙上抹去。”自那以后，班克西的新作就被用有机玻璃面板保护了起来。班克西上一出精心策划的恶作剧是在三年多前，当时他在滨海威斯顿开放了Dismaland主题公园——一个“不适合小孩子的家庭主题乐园”。《卫报》当时将其描述为“时而令人捧腹，时而大开眼界，时而触目惊心”。
A Banksy painting sold at auction for $1.4 million - then automatically shredded itself
班克斯名画以 140 万美元拍卖成交——然后自毁切碎
Anonymous British graffiti artist Banksy has pulled off another stunt that seized the attention of the art world - this time at the expense of his own work.
On Friday, a Banksy painting titled "Girl with Red Balloon" was being auctioned at Sotheby's in London. The bidding climbed to an extraordinary $1.4 million, an amount that tied the artist's own auction record from 2008. Finally, a hammer pounded to signify the end of the auction.
Right then, the painting's canvas began moving downward, seeming to pass through its elaborate gilded frame - and reappearing below in neat, vertical strips. Later, Sotheby's would explain that a shredder was hidden inside the frame.
"It appears we just got Banksy-ed," Sotheby's senior director Alex Branczik said in a statement that described the incident as "the first time in auction history that a work of art automatically shredded itself after coming under the hammer." He told the outlet, "We are busy figuring out what this means in an auction context. The shredding is now part of the integral art work."
Banksy later posted a video to Instagram that showed footage of a shredding mechanism being built into the frame. "A few years ago I secretly built a shredder into a painting," he stated in the video text, "in case it was ever put up for auction…" The video then jumped to clips of Friday's auction at Sotheby's, indicating that Banksy - or someone who works with him - was there when it happened.
"The urge to destroy is also a creative urge," Banksy captioned the Instagram post.
总爱隐姓埋名的英国涂鸦艺术家班克斯成功地制造了另一项吸引艺术界注意的噱头——这次是以他自己的作品为代价。周五，一幅名为《女孩与红气球》的画在伦敦苏富比进行拍卖。它的竞拍价高达惊人的 140 万美元，这一数字与这位艺术家 2008 年的拍卖记录持平。最后，拍卖槌落下，意味着拍卖结束。就在此时，这幅画的画布开始下移，似乎穿过了它那精致的镀金边框——以整齐垂直纸条状重新出现在下方。事后，苏富比解释称，一个碎纸机被藏在了画框里。苏富比的高级主管亚历克斯·布兰茨克在一份声明中表示：“看来我们刚被‘班克斯’了。”他在此声明中把这起事件描述为“拍卖史上第一次艺术品在落槌后自行销毁。”他告诉媒体，“我们正忙着搞清楚这在拍卖中意味着什么。自毁切碎现在成为了整件艺术品的一部分。”不久后，班克斯在 Instagram 上发布了一个视频，视频镜头展示切碎装置正被安装进画框内。他在视频中写道，“几年前，我偷偷地把一台碎纸机安在一幅画里，以防它被拿来拍卖……”随后，视频画面跳转到了周五苏富比的拍卖会上，这表明班克斯，或者与他合作的人，当时就在事发现场。班克斯为这则 Instagram 帖子加上了文字注释：“摧毁的冲动也是一种创造性冲动”。
