Banksy breaks a new record at Sotheby’s with his self-destructing work

This Thursday, October 14 in London, the auction room of the international house Sotheby’s is once again full to bursting. Dozens of people crowd around Banksy’s work, Love is in the Bin, one of the street artist’s most famous stencils depicting a young girl releasing a red balloon on a white canvas. Such a scene is reminiscent of the excitement that had spread to the same auction room three years earlier. In 2018, Love is in the Bin – originally called Girl with Balloon  –  had already stirred up the entire art world when the work was finally sold for $1.1 million, a remarkable sum for the time.  But no sooner had the sharp snap of the auctioneer’s hammer sounded,  to mark its attribution to a collector who remained anonymous, than the painting was mysteriously animated. Like a sheet of paper coming out of a printer, the canvas slowly slid from its support to the bottom of the frame, releasing its lower part cut into thin strips under the panicked eyes of the assembly. By destroying his own work, the artist – renowned for his anti-capitalist commitments –  questioned the relationship between the economic and material value of the work of art in the context of a liberal and globalized market allowing pieces to reach staggering sums . However,  far from working against him, this turn of events actually consecrated the man  – whose identity  is still unknown today –  on the international art market.

Although half-shredded, Love is in the Bin went under the hammer again this Thursday, October 14 ,  its collector having decided to part with it after three years. Despite the previous stunt, the painting has remained relatively intact, its upper half having not even been touched. As for its lower half, the cutout follows straight lines vertically, whose strips of equal size retain the original design almost intact. For several minutes, a dozen people bid to try to acquire the work,  estimated at between 4 and 6 million dollars,  finally sold to a private Asian collector for 18.6 million pounds –  or 21.8 million euros,  about 18 times the original purchase price. Never before has a work by Banksy reached such an amount. A relic of a historical moment in the art market, Love is in the Bin today crystallizes all the ambiguity of Banksy, whose explicitly committed discourse is clouded as its market price rises, and that his works continue without him to feed the system he criticizes with so much panache. Unless the work, which has just found its third owner, later reveals a new surprise…