Banksy Love or Hate
Image provided by Banksy Explained On 5 October 2018, a version of Balloon Girl with the artist’s frame sold at Sotheby’s London for GBP 1,042,000. However, shortly after the gavel dropped and the sale was final, an alarm sounded inside of the picture frame and the canvas passed through a shredder hidden within the frame, partially shredding the image. The prank received wide news coverage around the world, with one newspaper stating that it was “quite possibly the biggest prank in art history.” Banksy then released a video on how the shredder was installed into the frame and the shredding of the picture, explaining that he had surreptitiously fitted the painting with the shredder a few years previously, in case it ever went up for auction. To explain his rationale for destroying his own artwork, Banksy quoted Picasso: “The urge to destroy is also a creative urge”...