Banksy’s crumbling paint is back on sale and can be worth twice as much

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Written by Jacquelyn Palumbo, CNN

It’s been almost three years since a Banksy painting was partially broken in front of startled viewers, moments after it sold for more than a million pounds ($ 1.4 million) at an auction in London.

Now, “Love is in the Bin” (renamed “Girl with the Balloon”) is back on sale. And the Sotheby’s auction house estimates it could fetch up to £ 6 million ($ 8.3 million) when it goes under the hammer next month, six times its previous value.

The work of art remains half-crumbled in its frame, which once hid a mechanism that Banksy later implied had malfunctioned, preventing the work from falling like rubbish to the ground.
“It was a great time because nothing like it had been done before,” art historian, author and co-founder of Artful Matthew Israel said in an email interview. The idea of ​​a self-destructive work of art was, he added, “totally at odds with the aims of the auction house, where the condition of a work of art is paramount and knowledge and experience in this regard are fundamental aspects of its authority and value “.
Banksy’s ‘Love is in the Bin’ at Sotheby’s in 2018, after the paint went through a hidden shredder.

Banksy’s ‘Love is in the Bin’ at Sotheby’s in 2018, after the paint went through a hidden shredder. Credit: Tristan Fewings / Getty Images for Sotheby’s

Was then the work of self-destruction a penetrating critique of attractive prices in an art market that values ​​institutions above artists, or simply an orchestrated public relations trick?

This debate arose immediately after the October 2018 auction and was fueled by events that kept the painting in the news months later, including videos Banksy released on social media as breadcrumbs that invited more speculation. about their intentions. A Sotheby’s press release says that so far the play has been the subject of 30,000 news items (and now, one more).

According to Israel, the answer is a bit of both.

“It’s an ingenious PR that allowed Bansky to continue to be part of the conversation … and it also raised important questions about artists and the art market, as Banksy has been doing for many years now,” he said.

The anonymous street artist has performed several tricks that questioned the assigned value of his work. In 2013, he sold original artwork in New York’s Central Park alongside other street vendors. Priced at just $ 60, the works didn’t interest passersby much, resulting in only $ 420 in sales, according to a video he later posted.

Look at the moment Banksy’s painting is “self-destructive”

And he is far from the first artist to employ subversive tactics to criticize the art world. After the shredding incident, historian Preminda Jacob compared the trick to the work of past artists such as Marcel Duchamp, who famously exhibited a urinal upside down to challenge the “intellectual pretensions of the art market “.

But in the case of “Love is in the Container,” Banksy’s rebellious cache has been called into question, as it is Sotheby’s who ultimately benefited from the chaos surrounding the sale. The auction house claims its staff had no idea what the artist had planned, and a spokesman told CNN via email: “We had no prior knowledge of this event and were not involved in any way.” . But Israel, like many others, has its suspicions.

“I still think there are more things in history,” he said. “It’s not clear how (Sotheby’s) would not have noticed that the shredder was embedded in the frame. Some have commented that the unusual weight of the frame would have undeniably raised concerns, for one. And what does Sotheby’s professed ignorance about inspecting say? the state of other works of art that people bid on and buy? “

The identity of the winning bidder also remains a mystery, although Sotheby’s has described the buyer as Europe’s female collector and long-time auction house customer.

A few months after the 2018 auction, the Frieder Burda Museum in Baden-Baden, Germany, became the first public space to display the work of art. He is currently on tour before next month’s sale, starting in London this weekend and then moving on to Hong Kong, Taipei and New York.

Spectators at Sotheby’s auctions react when Banksy’s artwork crumbles in 2018.

Spectators at Sotheby’s auctions react when Banksy’s artwork crumbles in 2018. Credit: Banksy

Meanwhile, Banksy has remained prolific throughout the pandemic, leaving rats spray-painted on face masks on London Underground trains and, more recently, embarking on a “spray” in British coastal cities. This spring, his work set a new auction record when the painting “Game Changer”, a tribute to health workers he gave to a hospital in Southampton, UK, raised £ 16.7 million (23 , $ 1 million) at Christie’s in London.

“What is so great and enduring about Bansky’s works is that they question so many assumptions in the art world, from the importance of individuality and biography, to the proper place of art, or the value of art. ‘art, or the fetishization of the poor and the art of’ the street, ‘said Israel.

In the case of “Love is in the Container,” he added, Banksy questions “class and value, and the rarefied domains of rich, conspicuous consumption.”

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