Three years ago, Banksy’s Girl With Balloon sold for £1 million at auction, and promptly self-destructed. This was part of the plan — at least, it was Banksy’s plan, as he’d installed a shredder in the frame and had a plan in mind to reflect on the role of erasure and destruction in art. Or he was just messing with us all. It’s tough to know sometimes, when it comes to Banksy-related matters.
Turns out that this might be one of the handful of works of art where shredding it actually increased its value. ARTnews reports that the painting — now retitled Love is in the Bin – is headed back to auction, where it’s estimated to sell for a lot more than it was the first time around. Specifically, Sotheby’s now predicts that the work will sell for between £4 million and £6 million.
The auction house’s own page for the work features the description, “Executed in 2018, this work is unique,” which is both entirely accurate and something of an understatement. There aren’t a lot of paintings that can shred themselves, after all.
Love is in the Bin is scheduled to be sold as part of Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction, scheduled for October 14 in London.
On their website, Sotheby’s cites works by both Robert Rauschenberg and Ai Weiwei as thematic precursors for Banksy’s piece. It’s also worth noting that he isn’t the only contemporary artist to find their work worth more after being destroyed; MSCHF’s destruction and resale of a Damien Hirst painting last year also comes to mind.
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