“We’ve been Banksy-ed,” Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s head of European Contemporary art said in a press conference after the incident. “I’ll be quite honest, we have not experienced this situation in the past, where a painting is spontaneously shredded upon achieving a record for the artist.”
Now that… that’s fuckin’ art right there.
I love the rest of the article entirely missing the point of Banksy doing that being a surprise.
Throw back to Banksy setting a trap in 2006, and springing it 12 years later:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/watch-14-million-bansky-painting-shred-itself-soon-it-sold-180970486/
Now that… that’s fuckin’ art right there.
I love the rest of the article entirely missing the point of Banksy doing that being a surprise.
There, you idiots, frame that image.
They keep referring to Banksy as “he.” We don’t know if Banksy is male or female though, correct?
As far as I know that’s correct, nobody knows who Bansky actually is.… Is what I was going to say.
What astoundingly serendipitous timing.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/global-art-banksy/
TL:DR
First posted on the 13th, picked up by other media roughly 6 hours ago, Reuters released a special investigative report, and they believe Bansky is:
... are you sure? ...
Robert Del Naja, the frontman of Massive Attack.
And Love Is In The Bin became more valuable than Girl With Balloon at a subsequent auction, too, by a factor of 18x.