Banksy appears to be stoking the buzz around a recently released rendition of his artwork “Girl With Balloon,” posting a 3-minute video that shows how he had planned for it to self-shred after an auction earlier this month.
The video, posted to his website Tuesday, shows him constructing a shredding mechanism inside the ornate frame and pushing a button in a black box to activate the destruction at Sotheby’s in London. The act shocked the crowd, but the winning bidder, a European collector, went ahead and bought it anyway for $1.4 million, according to the auction house.
Sotheby’s did not name the buyer.
The shredding drew speculation that the act was a stunt to increase the value of the painting, which depicts a girl reaching for a heart-shaped red balloon. The canvas was shredded to right above the girl’s head, leaving the balloon intact.
The end of the new video notes: “In rehearsals it worked every time…” A complete shredding of the same design is then shown.
The video is titled, “Shred the Love, the Director’s cut.” It shows hands and a hooded figure (Banksy is fond of hoodies) constructing the mechanism.
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