Iconic Banksy Artwork Shreds Itself After Being Auctioned Off at Sotheby’s For $1.4 Million

On October 5th Sotheby’s in London held an auction for the iconic Banksy painting “Girl With Balloon (2006)” and as soon the auction completed for £1,042,000 ($1.4 million), an alarm went off and the special “artist’s frame” created by Banksy that held the painting proceeded to shred the famous work of art. After the incident, Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s senior director and head of contemporary art in Europe, was quoted as saying “It appears we just got Banksy-ed”.

Sotheby’s issued a statement about situation: “We have talked with the successful purchaser who was surprised by the story. We are in discussion about next steps.”

Banksy uploaded a video about the prank that starts out with the following text: “A few years ago I secretly built a shredder into a painting…in case it was ever put up for auction…”

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Going, going, gone…

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Scott Beale
Scott Beale

Scott Beale is the founder of Laughing Squid and is based in New York City. When not running the blog, Scott can be found posting on Threads and sharing photos on Instagram.