After a millionaire auction of the artist Banksy himself destroyed, the artist has made a video for the prank known. In an Instagram post, he claims to have planned the "dramatic artistic reward" for years.
The spray-painted canvas "Girl With Balloon" went under the hammer at Sotheby's in London for 1.04 million pounds: a record price for the artist. However, after an alarm sounded, the image ran through an embedded shredder.
Banksy shared a video of the shocked faces of people in the room shortly after the self-destruction with the words "Going, going, gone ...".
Later, the artist posted a video in which he confessed himself to the prank: "A few years ago I secretly installed a shredder in a painting in case it ever gets auctioned." The video shows how Banksy implanted the shredder in the picture frame. His spokeswoman Jo Brooks confirmed the authenticity of the post. Meanwhile, the video has disappeared from his side again.
The auction house did not know about the planned trick, Brooks said. It is now in negotiations with the buyer, since the picture according to art market observers after the self-destruction is worth much more.
Banksy had been personally at the auction
The artist Pierre Koukjian speaks of a "turning point in the history of contemporary and conceptual art". After him Banksy had been personally at the auction to look at the reactions of the visitors. Brooks did not comment.
Banksy is not the first artist to deconstruct his own work. The artist Gustav Metzger, born in Germany, is also known in "autodestructive art". He created paintings with acid that consumed the underlying material.
Banksy began his career as a sprayer in Bristol, England. The image of two kissing policemen made him famous. The shredder is not the first trick of the artist. So he smuggled the life-size figure of a Guantanamo Bay prisoner into Disneyland.