A Banksy artwork which shredded itself at a previous auction has sold for a record £16m.
Love is in the Bin was what remained of the artist’s live destruction of his piece Girl with Balloon, which sold for £1 million in 2018.
It went under the hammer at Sotheby’s in London on Thursday, selling for £16m – vastly over its £4-6m guide price, according to multiple reportes.
The BBC for instance reports that including a buyer’s premium, the purchaser paid £18.5 million in total.
Nine bidders battled for around 10 minutes in the sale, which beats the previous record of £16.8 million set for Banksy in March.
After closing bidding. auctioneer Oliver Barker joked he was relieved that the artwork was “still there”.
“Love is in the Bin” saw Banksy poke fun at the art world.
Sotheby’s contemporary art chairman Alex Branczik said the stunt “did not so much destroy an artwork by shredding it, but instead created one”.
“Today, this piece is considered heir to a venerated legacy of anti-establishment art,” he added, labelling it as “the ultimate Banksy artwork and a true icon of recent art history”.
Back in 2018, moments after the hammer fell at the auction, alarms sounded and the canvas dropped through a hidden shredder built into the bottom.
The unnamed European woman who bought the piece said: “At first I was shocked, but I realised I would end up with my own piece of art history.”
