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October 5, 2018: a 2006 spray and acrylic on canvas version of the iconic Girl with Balloon by Banksy goes up for auction at Sotheby's in London. From the £ 200-300,000 estimate, the work reaches over a million, but at the auctioneer's last hammer blow, a mechanism installed in the frame begins to self-destruct the canvas, which remains more than half shredded.
The event shook the art world, and the destructive action was claimed by the street artist, according to some present at the event and responsible himself for having activated the mechanism at a distance. Banksy's provocative trait has reached its peak, and the art world has been for all intents and purposes "banksy-ed", as Alex Branczik, Senior Director and Head of Contemporary Art, Europe at Sotheby's, said.
The work, renamed "Love Is in the Bin", will return to auction at Sotheby's in London on October 14, 2021. The estimate this time is between £4 million and £6 million, up to six times the 2018 sale price, but it is possible that it will reach an even higher value and a new record for Banksy cannot be ruled out.
The case of the shredded Balloon Girl has had an unprecedented media resonance. The audacity of the action, together with the radical criticism of the system, has represented a unique moment not only for the artist, but for the entire history of art and Love Is in the Bin is the witness.
