Words: Tom Ward
Banksy’s Girl With Balloon first appeared on the wall of some steps on Waterloo Bridge in 2002. It depicts a stencilled black and white child reaching for a red, heart-shaped balloon that is drifting just out of reach. On 5 October 2018, it became the centrepiece of a now infamous stunt that seemed to both jibe at the art world and question just how much a piece of art is actually worth.
The scene is Sotheby’s auction house, London. Auctioneer Oliver Barker has just confirmed the sale of a gold-framed copy of Girl With Balloon for £1.04 million. Then, from somewhere in the audience, a covert remote is pressed, causing the artwork to be pushed through the bottom of its frame, via a built-in contraption which shreds almost two-thirds of the piece as audience members look on, open-mouthed.
To the untrained eye, it seems a piece of art has just been destroyed moments after being sold for a seven figure sum. To Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art — and apparent king of spin — not so. “Banksy didn’t destroy an artwork in the auction, he created one,” he said at the time. Rebranded Love Is In The Bin the piece remained with its buyer, who declared it “a piece of art history”.
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