https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/06/...nting-sothebys.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur What do you make of this? Entertaining. Bizarre. Who was in on it? .
I do know, however, in any exchange for a Banksy for money you had better be prepared for a very unexpected return.
Obviously christies was in on it, but this publicity stunt probably doubled the value of the piece so good on them!
I think the guy that activated it via remote control got away too easily...if they really wanted to do something about the guy they really could, but they aren't going to lengths to do that, so I think the management is letting it slide with a smug grin on their face...
Who the fakk is Bansky? We've got some 'twat' that creeps around, at night, spray painting perfectly good brick walls over here in England, but he's known as Banksy.
Sotheby's was in on it, they usually put paintings on an easel, not hung on a wall; there's no way they wouldn't have noticed the shredder in the frame; and the picture had supposedly been in private hands since 2006, and it would not be straightforward to power a shredder after 12 years of storage. "Kicking out" someone is just a part of the show. Nice gag.
Banksy is a dick who defaces private property. People call it art and think it's cute, but I don't see how it differs--in principle--from things like this:
Banksy has a pretty political message most of the time (See above). At least he doesn’t deface and destroy historic monuments. Sic: the Christopher Columbus monument in Baltimore, the oldest in the country at 225 years old. And by the way who still uses a ribbon shredder? Microcut or nothing!
Huge publicity stunt. Auction house must have been in on it. Bored of Banksy now. If anyone else went around drawing on others' property they'd be arrested (and rightly so) ..just need to catch him!
Great what he is doing. Intelligent art. Makes poeple think again. That is what art is for. To many poeple only see the price tag and not the thoughts behind the art and the process when an real artist works on his idea.
I’m sure the piece is in restoration already. With the video the buyer now has a piece of modern art history. Performance art at its best. Great use of media. Love it.
Oh my gawd! I went to a lot of trouble 'over many years' helping to create beautiful buildings in London & teaching young apprentices who dedicated themselves to the noble skill of Brickwork. We didn't produce these lovely structures for some 'lazy, nocturnal, herbert' to deface them for the amusement or edification of wealthy, champagne, socialists! Art? ...........'King's new clothes' more like!... I hope he never gets anywhere near Hampton Court Palace with his, cheap, spray paint.
On this forum of all places, you should know that the damage is now part of the provenance and that this is a one-of-a-kind work. There's no way it gets repaired; instead, the shredded version is worth twice what it was. That's if it was shredded at all; speculators are saying that it's more likely that the real painting was rolled into the frame while a "shredded" copy was unrolled. Note that in the video, there's no shredding sound: the process is quiet enough to not be heard over voices. And the razor blades that are part of the "shredder" in the construction sequence at the start are all aligned 90 degrees to the angle necessary to cut canvas like that. Pranks within pranks.