Banksy’s shredded artwork is back at auction for nearly four times its previous price.
Banksy is an England street artist who displays his art on public visible surfaces such as walls and self-built physical prop pieces. His work is mostly demonstrated through sarcastic, black humor esthetic, and his social and political commentary has appeared on streets, walls, and bridges throughout the world. Banksy no longer sells photographs or reproductions of his street graffiti, but his public “installations” are regularly resold, often even by removing the wall they were painted on.
The work I choose from him is one of the most famous and impactful ones–Love in the Bin. Banksy is anger about the behavior that people secretly, unofficially auction his street art piece, which is supposed to be public and not for sale. To comment on this, he decided to auction his painting work Love in the Bin officially in Sotheby’s London auction room. After the drop of the hammer with the auction price of $1.4 million, the image began slipping through a shredder secretly built into the bottom of the frame. Half of the painting was cut into pieces. What is dramatic is that the act of Banksy brought more value to this art piece. The art piece was cast as “the first work in history ever created during a live auction”.
This work reminds me of Fountain of Duchen. What is art? How to define art? For Banksy’s street art, the value is closely related to its publicity and the freedom of the street, open walls, and pedestrians. The act of stealing and unofficial auction completely change the way the author expected, it is no longer public, it is no longer sarcastic. The action of destroying an art piece after its auction carries Banksy’s attitude towards his art and his anger, which are the reasons why the value of these pieces of painting goes triple. The message matters, not the action. Action, which is shredding in Banksy’s context, is just the medium that carries the value.
Reference:
Leave a Reply