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LONDON (AP) – The Banksy art joker has hit again.
An elusive street artist's work seems to be self-destructing in front of surprise auctioneers Friday, moments after being sold for 1.04 million pounds ($ 1.4 million) ).
The "Girl With Balloon" spray painting was sold at more than three times its pre-sale estimate and reached a record price for the artist.
Then, when an alarm sounded, she passed through a shredder embedded in the frame, leaving half of the canvas hanging in strips.
A message posted on Banksy's official Instagram account showed the moment – and the shocked reaction of those in the room – with the words "'Going, go, gone, …'".
Sotheby's, who had noted before the sale that the golden frame of the work was "an essential element of Banksy's own work" – was astonished at the incident.
"It looks like we had just received Banksy-ed," said Alex Branczik, head of the European Contemporary Art auction at the auction house.
The auction house said it was "in discussion about the next steps" with the buyer. Some art market watchers say that the work could be worth even more in its jagged state.
"We have not experienced this situation in the past. a painting for the artist, "said Branczik. "We are trying to find out what this means in the context of an auction."
The Geneva artist Pierre Koukjian, present at the auction, said the buyer was "very lucky" to own a piece now historical. Banksy's farce has been described as a "turning point in the history of contemporary art and conceptual art".
Koukjian, who met Banksy, said that he was certain to have seen the artist in the auction room amid the confusion of the moment.
"What he's done is really shocking, in the good sense of the word," said Koukjian. "I think it will be historic and people will talk about it for a long time."
Banksy is not the first artist to deconstruct his own work. In the years following the Second World War, the German artist Gustav Metzger was one of the pioneers of "self-destructive art", creating acid paints that destroy the fabric.
Banksy, who never revealed his complete identity, began his career in spray painting in Bristol, England, and became one of the world's best-known artists. His mischievous and often satirical images include two police officers kissing each other, an armed riot police with yellow smiles, and a chimpanzee with a sign saying "Laugh now, but someday I'll be in charge."
He also has a penchant for elaborate pranks.
In 2005, he hung on the British Museum an image of a former pioneer human being pushing a shopping cart to the store where he stayed for several days before being discovered. The following year, he smuggled Disneyland into a life-size figure of a Guantanamo Bay detainee. In 2015, he built a large-scale dystopian theme park – "Dismaland" – on the edge of the British sea.
"Girl With Balloon", which depicts a little child reaching out to a heart – shaped red balloon, was stencilled on a wall in East London and was reproduced to infinity to become the one of the most famous images of Banksy.
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