A work by Banksy self-destructs just after being bought for a million euros | Culture
The last prank of the British artist Banksy has one of his most famous works as protagonist. On Friday night, the creator himself published an Instagram photograph of the moment when the canvas Girl With Balloon (Girl with a balloon) is shredded by passing through a paper shredder installed in the lower part of the frame after being auctioned for 1.04 million pounds (1.1 million euros) in the London house Sotheby's.
"Going, going, gone!", Banksy writes under the image in his profile of this social network, in allusion to the words the auctioneer pronounces when he awards a work to a client and that can be translated as "leaves, leaves , It is gone". "It seems that we have just been Banksy-tados"admitted the director of contemporary art of Sotheby's, Alex Branczik, after the bid, before the surprised reaction of the attendees." Specialized media in the art world, such as Arnetnews and his expert Colin Gleadell, suggest that it is a scene, that the artist could be the buyer and wonder if the bookmaker was compinchada.
In a survey conducted in July of 2017, this work was considered as the favorite of the British, ahead of paintings by John Constable and J. M. W. Turner and sculptures by Antony Gormley. Reproduced in hundreds of different versions, it is one of the best known images of the artist in the whole world.
The piece auctioned on Friday night dates from 2006 and shows a girl trying to reach a balloon in the shape of a heart. It was a canvas version of a design that first appeared as graffiti on a street in East London.
Originally from the English city of Bristol, Banksy became known for his subversive paintings that appeared in various parts of the world, from London to Palestine, and since then he has become a sought-after artist. After a few months of inactivity, in June 2018, the artist reappeared with eight paintings distributed in Paris. His role in favor of refugee rights, especially in Calais, has been very active. Banksy also donated to the refugees in the Calais Jungle the material that served to build his ephemeral amusement park, Dismaland, opened and closed in 2015 in the seaside resort of Weston-super-Mare, near Bristol.
