Love is in the Bin, that’s the name of the partly shredded artwork by Banksy that went under the hammer today at Sotheby’s auction house in London. It was expected to bring in four to six million, but that estimate turned out to be on the low side.
The work was also auctioned in 2018. back then it was still called Girl with Balloon. It became one of the most spectacular art auctions ever. Before the eyes of the buyer, who had paid just over a million euros for the work, part of the image disappeared in a paper shredder that the artist had built into the frame.
For that reason, the auctioneer found it exciting to hammer off the auction, he now did so for a bid of almost 19 million euros:
After that spectacular action, the work was given a new name Love is in the Bin. It is not often that a work of art is damaged more than intact. This is probably the first time in history that a work increases in value by almost 18 million euros after damage.
Mystery drives up price
The work of the mysterious artist Banksy is sought after by collectors. Despite multiple attempts to expose him, we’re still not sure who’s behind that name, which inflates the value of his work quite a bit. In March of this year, his drawing game changer paid a record amount of 20 million euros.
This 3 minute video shows how the painting was prepared and how the auction went, at 2:36 you can see how the destruction should have gone: