Banksy Art Self-Destructs After Selling for $1.4M

By Rowena Salazar

Anonymous artist Banksy stunned the art world on October 6, 2018 with a prank that caused one of his paintings to self-destruct. Moments after "Girl With Balloon" sold for $1.4M via phone auction at Sotheby's auction house, an alarm sounded. Then, a remote-controlled mechanism slid the canvas down its frame where a shredder was hidden. Several videos and photos show the painting hanging halfway shredded outside of its frame.

"Girl With Balloon" was a spray paint on canvas work completed in 2006 and shows a small child reaching up toward a heart-shaped red balloon. The original work was stenciled on a wall in east London and is one of Bansky's most recognizable images.

Banksy, an England-based graffiti artist, is also considered a political activist and vandal. He has remained anonymous since gaining fame for his stenciled graffiti art, usually spray-painting his murals in the middle of the night. Banksy often incorporates dark humor, political messaging, and social commentary into his art. He openly criticizes commercialism, once even selling works of his art at a New York Central Park pop-up shop for $60 a piece, far below their value. In 2007, he graffitied "ONE NATION UNDER CCTV" on the side of a British postal service building.

"Graffiti art has a hard enough life as it is, before you add hedge-fund managers wanting to chop it out and hang it over the fireplace," the New York Times quoted Banksy in 2013. "For the sake of keeping all street art where it belongs, I'd encourage people not to buy anything by anybody, unless it was created for sale in the first place." (Ryzick, M. "Another Banksy Mural to Go from Wall to Auction." The New York Times, 12 August 2013).

Soon after shredding his own painting, which sold for a record-high price, Banksy posted a photo on his Instagram account of the half-shredded painting with a caption reading "Going, going, gone …" He also posted a video describing how "a few years ago I secretly built a shredder into a painting … in case it was ever put up for auction …" He captioned the video with a quote from Pablo Picasso—"The urge to destroy is also a creative urge."

From the Financial District Times

"'Girl With Balloon' already broke an important auctions record for Bansky, selling for $1.4M. After its recent shredding, we certainly expect this important work to raise the bar even further. While casual art observers consider the work to be destroyed, collectors are drawn to its one-of-a-kind circumstance. We wouldn't be surprised if it's already doubled in value."

In a paragraph of at least five sentences, address Banksy's advice "not to buy anything by anybody, unless it was created for sale in the first place." Include at least one specific reference to each excerpt in your response.

Question

Banksy Art Self-Destructs After Selling for $1.4M

By Rowena Salazar

Anonymous artist Banksy stunned the art world on October 6, 2018 with a prank that caused one of his paintings to self-destruct. Moments after "Girl With Balloon" sold for $1.4M via phone auction at Sotheby's auction house, an alarm sounded. Then, a remote-controlled mechanism slid the canvas down its frame where a shredder was hidden. Several videos and photos show the painting hanging halfway shredded outside of its frame.

"Girl With Balloon" was a spray paint on canvas work completed in 2006 and shows a small child reaching up toward a heart-shaped red balloon. The original work was stenciled on a wall in east London and is one of Bansky's most recognizable images.

Banksy, an England-based graffiti artist, is also considered a political activist and vandal. He has remained anonymous since gaining fame for his stenciled graffiti art, usually spray-painting his murals in the middle of the night. Banksy often incorporates dark humor, political messaging, and social commentary into his art. He openly criticizes commercialism, once even selling works of his art at a New York Central Park pop-up shop for $60 a piece, far below their value. In 2007, he graffitied "ONE NATION UNDER CCTV" on the side of a British postal service building.

"Graffiti art has a hard enough life as it is, before you add hedge-fund managers wanting to chop it out and hang it over the fireplace," the New York Times quoted Banksy in 2013. "For the sake of keeping all street art where it belongs, I'd encourage people not to buy anything by anybody, unless it was created for sale in the first place." (Ryzick, M. "Another Banksy Mural to Go from Wall to Auction." The New York Times, 12 August 2013).

Soon after shredding his own painting, which sold for a record-high price, Banksy posted a photo on his Instagram account of the half-shredded painting with a caption reading "Going, going, gone …" He also posted a video describing how "a few years ago I secretly built a shredder into a painting … in case it was ever put up for auction …" He captioned the video with a quote from Pablo Picasso—"The urge to destroy is also a creative urge."

From the Financial District Times

"'Girl With Balloon' already broke an important auctions record for Bansky, selling for $1.4M. After its recent shredding, we certainly expect this important work to raise the bar even further. While casual art observers consider the work to be destroyed, collectors are drawn to its one-of-a-kind circumstance. We wouldn't be surprised if it's already doubled in value."

In a paragraph of at least five sentences, address Banksy's advice "not to buy anything by anybody, unless it was created for sale in the first place." Include at least one specific reference to each excerpt in your response.

Vocaloid · Answer

it's asking for your response, so you should re-read the passages and try to form your thoughts and opinions on Banksy's philosophy that people shouldn't buy street art unless it was specifically meant to be sold. The prompt also says to reference each of the passages, so you should mention a specific idea or line(s) from each passage to respond to.

I will not write the whole thing for you but I can give you some pointers on where to start.

for example, you could reference this paragraph:

"Graffiti art has a hard enough life as it is, before you add hedge-fund managers wanting to chop it out and hang it over the fireplace," the New York Times quoted Banksy in 2013. "For the sake of keeping all street art where it belongs, I'd encourage people not to buy anything by anybody, unless it was created for sale in the first place." (Ryzick, M. "Another Banksy Mural to Go from Wall to Auction." The New York Times, 12 August 2013).

and talk about the reasons why Banksy doesn't want public street art to be privately owned (to keep the art for public enjoyment, to prevent his art from being commercialized, etc.) and what your opinions on it are. (is this a good idea or not, what are the advantages and disadvantages of this mindset, etc.)