{"id":47005,"date":"2018-10-06T14:35:31","date_gmt":"2018-10-06T14:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/home2\/theaegis\/WP\/?p=47005"},"modified":"2026-10-06T18:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T01:33:10","slug":"banksy-girl-red-balloon-self-destructs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/fr\/2018\/10\/06\/banksy-girl-red-balloon-self-destructs\/","title":{"rendered":"Banksy Shredded Girl With Balloon Into an \u00a318.6 Million Trophy, Then Left Cities Paying to Guard What He Painted"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"epyt-video-wrapper\">\n<div  style=\"display: block; margin: 0px auto;\"  id=\"_ytid_83551\"  width=\"480\" height=\"270\"  data-origwidth=\"480\" data-origheight=\"270\" data-facadesrc=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mWV_k86PZHk?enablejsapi=1&#038;origin=https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com&#038;autoplay=0&#038;cc_load_policy=0&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;loop=0&#038;fs=1&#038;playsinline=0&#038;controls=1&#038;disablekb=0&#038;color=red&#038;cc_lang_pref=&#038;rel=0&#038;autohide=2&#038;theme=dark&#038;\" class=\"__youtube_prefs__ epyt-facade epyt-is-override  no-lazyload\" data-epautoplay=\"1\" ><img decoding=\"async\" data-spai-excluded=\"true\" class=\"epyt-facade-poster skip-lazy\" loading=\"lazy\"  alt=\"Banksy painting self shreds after being sold\"  src=\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/mWV_k86PZHk\/maxresdefault.jpg\"  \/><button class=\"epyt-facade-play\" aria-label=\"Play\"><svg data-no-lazy=\"1\" height=\"100%\" version=\"1.1\" viewBox=\"0 0 68 48\" width=\"100%\"><path class=\"ytp-large-play-button-bg\" d=\"M66.52,7.74c-0.78-2.93-2.49-5.41-5.42-6.19C55.79,.13,34,0,34,0S12.21,.13,6.9,1.55 C3.97,2.33,2.27,4.81,1.48,7.74C0.06,13.05,0,24,0,24s0.06,10.95,1.48,16.26c0.78,2.93,2.49,5.41,5.42,6.19 C12.21,47.87,34,48,34,48s21.79-0.13,27.1-1.55c2.93-0.78,4.64-3.26,5.42-6.19C67.94,34.95,68,24,68,24S67.94,13.05,66.52,7.74z\" fill=\"#f00\"><\/path><path d=\"M 45,24 27,14 27,34\" fill=\"#fff\"><\/path><\/svg><\/button><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The gavel at Sotheby&rsquo;s London had barely settled on October 5, 2018, when a gilt frame started eating the painting it was supposed to protect. <em>Girl with Balloon<\/em>, spray paint and acrylic, a child reaching for a red heart, slid through a shredder Banksy had hidden in the frame before the canvas ever left the studio. It stopped halfway. The girl and the balloon survived in the top half. The bottom half became a curtain of strips. The invoice, fees included, was \u00a31,042,000, about $1.4 million, tying the auction record Banksy had set in 2008.<\/p>\n<p>Alex Branczik, then Sotheby&rsquo;s head of contemporary art in Europe, said the room had been \u00ab\u00a0Banksy-ed.\u00a0\u00bb The artist posted the stunned sales floor on Instagram with three words: \u00ab\u00a0Going, going, gone&#8230;\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"instagram-media\" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-permalink=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/Bokt2sEhlsu\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" data-instgrm-version=\"14\" style=\" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:500px; min-width:326px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);\">\n<div style=\"padding:16px;\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/Bokt2sEhlsu\/?utm_source=ig_embed&amp;utm_campaign=loading\" style=\" background:#FFFFFF; line-height:0; padding:0 0; text-align:center; text-decoration:none; width:100%;\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> <\/p>\n<div style=\" display: flex; flex-direction: row; align-items: center;\">\n<div style=\"background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 40px; margin-right: 14px; width: 40px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center;\">\n<div style=\" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 100px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 60px;\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"padding: 19% 0;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"display:block; height:50px; margin:0 auto 12px; width:50px;\"><svg width=\"50px\" height=\"50px\" viewBox=\"0 0 60 60\" version=\"1.1\" xmlns=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" xmlns:xlink=\"https:\/\/www.w3.org\/1999\/xlink\"><g stroke=\"none\" stroke-width=\"1\" fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><g transform=\"translate(-511.000000, -20.000000)\" fill=\"#000000\"><g><path d=\"M556.869,30.41 C554.814,30.41 553.148,32.076 553.148,34.131 C553.148,36.186 554.814,37.852 556.869,37.852 C558.924,37.852 560.59,36.186 560.59,34.131 C560.59,32.076 558.924,30.41 556.869,30.41 M541,60.657 C535.114,60.657 530.342,55.887 530.342,50 C530.342,44.114 535.114,39.342 541,39.342 C546.887,39.342 551.658,44.114 551.658,50 C551.658,55.887 546.887,60.657 541,60.657 M541,33.886 C532.1,33.886 524.886,41.1 524.886,50 C524.886,58.899 532.1,66.113 541,66.113 C549.9,66.113 557.115,58.899 557.115,50 C557.115,41.1 549.9,33.886 541,33.886 M565.378,62.101 C565.244,65.022 564.756,66.606 564.346,67.663 C563.803,69.06 563.154,70.057 562.106,71.106 C561.058,72.155 560.06,72.803 558.662,73.347 C557.607,73.757 556.021,74.244 553.102,74.378 C549.944,74.521 548.997,74.552 541,74.552 C533.003,74.552 532.056,74.521 528.898,74.378 C525.979,74.244 524.393,73.757 523.338,73.347 C521.94,72.803 520.942,72.155 519.894,71.106 C518.846,70.057 518.197,69.06 517.654,67.663 C517.244,66.606 516.755,65.022 516.623,62.101 C516.479,58.943 516.448,57.996 516.448,50 C516.448,42.003 516.479,41.056 516.623,37.899 C516.755,34.978 517.244,33.391 517.654,32.338 C518.197,30.938 518.846,29.942 519.894,28.894 C520.942,27.846 521.94,27.196 523.338,26.654 C524.393,26.244 525.979,25.756 528.898,25.623 C532.057,25.479 533.004,25.448 541,25.448 C548.997,25.448 549.943,25.479 553.102,25.623 C556.021,25.756 557.607,26.244 558.662,26.654 C560.06,27.196 561.058,27.846 562.106,28.894 C563.154,29.942 563.803,30.938 564.346,32.338 C564.756,33.391 565.244,34.978 565.378,37.899 C565.522,41.056 565.552,42.003 565.552,50 C565.552,57.996 565.522,58.943 565.378,62.101 M570.82,37.631 C570.674,34.438 570.167,32.258 569.425,30.349 C568.659,28.377 567.633,26.702 565.965,25.035 C564.297,23.368 562.623,22.342 560.652,21.575 C558.743,20.834 556.562,20.326 553.369,20.18 C550.169,20.033 549.148,20 541,20 C532.853,20 531.831,20.033 528.631,20.18 C525.438,20.326 523.257,20.834 521.349,21.575 C519.376,22.342 517.703,23.368 516.035,25.035 C514.368,26.702 513.342,28.377 512.574,30.349 C511.834,32.258 511.326,34.438 511.181,37.631 C511.035,40.831 511,41.851 511,50 C511,58.147 511.035,59.17 511.181,62.369 C511.326,65.562 511.834,67.743 512.574,69.651 C513.342,71.625 514.368,73.296 516.035,74.965 C517.703,76.634 519.376,77.658 521.349,78.425 C523.257,79.167 525.438,79.673 528.631,79.82 C531.831,79.965 532.853,80.001 541,80.001 C549.148,80.001 550.169,79.965 553.369,79.82 C556.562,79.673 558.743,79.167 560.652,78.425 C562.623,77.658 564.297,76.634 565.965,74.965 C567.633,73.296 568.659,71.625 569.425,69.651 C570.167,67.743 570.674,65.562 570.82,62.369 C570.966,59.17 571,58.147 571,50 C571,41.851 570.966,40.831 570.82,37.631\"><\/path><\/g><\/g><\/g><\/svg><\/div>\n<div style=\"padding-top: 8px;\">\n<div style=\" color:#3897f0; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:550; line-height:18px;\">View this post on Instagram<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"padding: 12.5% 0;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"display: flex; flex-direction: row; margin-bottom: 14px; align-items: center;\">\n<div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(0px) translateY(7px);\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #F4F4F4; height: 12.5px; transform: rotate(-45deg) translateX(3px) translateY(1px); width: 12.5px; flex-grow: 0; margin-right: 14px; margin-left: 2px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\"background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; height: 12.5px; width: 12.5px; transform: translateX(9px) translateY(-18px);\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-left: 8px;\">\n<div style=\" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 50%; flex-grow: 0; height: 20px; width: 20px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 2px solid transparent; border-left: 6px solid #f4f4f4; border-bottom: 2px solid transparent; transform: translateX(16px) translateY(-4px) rotate(30deg)\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-left: auto;\">\n<div style=\" width: 0px; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-right: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(16px);\"><\/div>\n<div style=\" background-color: #F4F4F4; flex-grow: 0; height: 12px; width: 16px; transform: translateY(-4px);\"><\/div>\n<div style=\" width: 0; height: 0; border-top: 8px solid #F4F4F4; border-left: 8px solid transparent; transform: translateY(-4px) translateX(8px);\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"display: flex; flex-direction: column; flex-grow: 1; justify-content: center; margin-bottom: 24px;\">\n<div style=\" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; margin-bottom: 6px; width: 224px;\"><\/div>\n<div style=\" background-color: #F4F4F4; border-radius: 4px; flex-grow: 0; height: 14px; width: 144px;\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.instagram.com\/en_US\/embeds.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>That should have been the end of a commodity. It was the start of a better one. Pest Control, the authentication office that decides what counts as a Banksy, recertified the half-destroyed canvas as a new work, <em>Love is in the Bin<\/em>. Sotheby&rsquo;s later called it the first artwork created live during an auction. A video from the artist showed the battery and the remote. The mechanism had been built to swallow the whole picture. It jammed. The jam is the picture.<\/p>\n<p>The 2018 buyer, described by the auction house as a long-standing female client in Europe, kept the wreck. On October 14, 2021, the same New Bond Street room sold it again. Presale exhibitions in Hong Kong, Taipei, and New York had already done the marketing. The estimate was \u00a34 million to \u00a36 million. Nine bidders chased it for about ten minutes. The hammer fell at \u00a316 million. With fees the price was \u00a318,582,000, roughly $25 million, more than eighteen times the 2018 result and a record for the artist. Auctioneer Oliver Barker introduced the lot as heir to \u00ab\u00a0a venerated legacy of anti-establishment art.\u00a0\u00bb The BBC&rsquo;s Will Gompertz had already called the shredded canvas one of the most significant artworks of the early twenty-first century. The buyer was reported as a private collector in Asia. Sotheby&rsquo;s said the remote shredder was still in the frame, and that it had been decommissioned.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-x\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">How did Banksy put up a statue in central London? <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/VW1Y1dDZa0\">https:\/\/t.co\/VW1Y1dDZa0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BBCNews\/status\/2050173493359083880?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 1, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p>The protest, in other words, manufactured the scarcity. A unique object with a story attached will outrun a stencil that exists as a million phone photos. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sothebys.com\/en\/articles\/banksy-brings-down-the-house-at-the-contemporary-art-evening-auction\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sotheby&rsquo;s own write-up of that evening<\/a> treats the shredding as the point of the lot, not a defect. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.myartbroker.com\/artist-banksy\/articles\/banksys-love-is-in-the-bin-the-greatest-pr-stunt-of-all-time\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dealers tracking the resale<\/a> have been blunt about the arithmetic: the client who refused to walk away from a ruined purchase made something on the order of \u00a315 million.<\/p>\n<p>What the shredded canvas did not do was cap the motif. Auction records compiled by <a href=\"https:\/\/banksyexplained.com\/banksy-originals-2026-auction-results\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Banksy Explained<\/a> list a different picture, <em>Girl and Balloon on Found Landscape<\/em> from 2012, selling at the Fair Warning auction on May 20, 2026, for $17,940,000, against an estimate of $13 million to $18 million. That canvas was never fed through a hidden shredder. It still landed within shouting distance of <em>Love is in the Bin<\/em>. On June 25, 2026, Sotheby&rsquo;s London sold a life-size <em>Love is in the Air<\/em>, the flower-thrower, for \u00a36,434,000, above a \u00a33.5 million to \u00a35.5 million estimate. At a Sotheby&rsquo;s online prints sale in March 2026, the edition <em>Applause<\/em> made \u00a396,000 at the hammer, far above the \u00a320,000 to \u00a330,000 band it had occupied for years. The secondary market has sorted itself into two lanes. Unique, certified, story-heavy originals still clear. Ordinary editioned sheets are a crowd.<\/p>\n<p>The street work is on a different ledger, and the public is holding the pen. On April 29, 2026, a statue appeared on a plinth at Waterloo Place in central London, just off the Mall, near Florence Nightingale and the Crimean War memorial. A man in a suit steps forward with a flag pulled over his face. Banksy confirmed the piece. Westminster City Council called itself the custodian. The artist owns the copyright. The council owns the bill for keeping the bronze, or whatever the figure is made of, from being climbed, stolen, or smashed.<\/p>\n<div class=\"embed-x\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Blinded by the flag. <\/p>\n<p>(I love this new piece by Banksy.) <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/tiJx6e9Ykw\">pic.twitter.com\/tiJx6e9Ykw<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Shane Claiborne (@ShaneClaiborne) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ShaneClaiborne\/status\/2073444634001350828?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 4, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p>In August 2026, answering a Freedom of Information request, the council said it had spent almost \u00a360,000 on barriers, administration, and a security guard. On September 28, 2026, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c3vgy8pkykgxo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the BBC reported<\/a> that Westminster was still \u00ab\u00a0exploring all options\u00a0\u00bb and that no formal decision had been made. A council spokesperson said the options had been discussed over the summer and that a cabinet member would decide. The council had already been in contact with the artist&rsquo;s team.<\/p>\n<p>That statue is not an isolated invoice. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/2026\/08\/09\/banksy-artworks-cost-taxpayers-150k\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Telegraph reported on August 9, 2026<\/a>, that three Banksy works had cost public bodies almost \u00a3150,000. A painting that appeared in September 2025 on the Royal Courts of Justice, a judge in a wig striking a protester with a gavel, cost the Ministry of Justice \u00a350,000 to remove from a Grade II-listed wall and another \u00a335,300 in security and overtime while staff guarded the scene. Shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy called it outrageous that taxpayers were cleaning up after an artist who, in his view, treats public buildings as free walls. Artists treated the same painting as a comment on the courts. Both reactions miss the mechanical fact. Once the image is famous, somebody has to pay either to keep it or to erase it, and that somebody is rarely the person who held the stencil.<\/p>\n<p>A third object is about to test the same split between protest and price. <em>Keep Ou T<\/em>, a 2019 installation, goes to Phillips in London on October 15, 2026, during Frieze Week, with an estimate of \u00a31.2 million to \u00a31.8 million. <a href=\"https:\/\/graffitistreet.com\/banksys-keep-ou-t-heads-to-auction-during-frieze-week-london\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">It is on view at 30 Berkeley Square<\/a> ahead of the sale. The support is a repurposed European Union arrivals gate. The words read \u00ab\u00a0KEEP OU.\u00a0\u00bb A rat uses the missing T as a tool on the padlock. The piece sat in the Royal Academy&rsquo;s summer exhibition in 2019. It belongs to a short run of Brexit pictures, including the 2017 Dover mural of a worker chipping a star out of the EU flag. Seven years later the gate is not a border. It is a lot.<\/p>\n<p>None of this required a new shredder. Pest Control certification, a Sotheby&rsquo;s or Phillips or Phillips-adjacent evening sale, and a story a stranger can retell in a sentence are enough. Removed street pieces that Pest Control will not authenticate sit in a worse category: famous, illegal to move, and hard to sell cleanly. The Waterloo Place statue is stuck in that gap. The council cannot pretend it is not there. Banksy is not coming to pick it up. The meter on the security guard keeps running.<\/p>\n<p>The AEGIS Alliance asked, the weekend the frame first jammed, whether anyone would buy Banksy again. They did, at eighteen times the money, and they are still buying the balloon without the shreds. The anti-market gesture is the market. The open question is narrower now. It is who pays when the gesture is bolted to a public plinth instead of a collector&rsquo;s wall.<\/p>\n<p>More from The AEGIS Alliance sits in <a href=\"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/category\/news\/odd-news\/\">Odd News<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/category\/news\/international-news\/\">International News<\/a>, including the <a href=\"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/2024\/08\/22\/the-biggest-diamond-in-more-than-a-century-is-discovered-in-botswana\/\">Botswana stone that reset what a single object can be worth<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/2020\/01\/13\/meet-all-new-nsfw-subaru-forester-edition\/\">Subaru trim name that escaped the factory and had to be peeled off a show stand<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Love is in the Bin resold for \u00a318,582,000 after the 2018 shredding. A different balloon canvas cleared $17.9 million in May 2026, while Westminster is still paying to guard a new statue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47006,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,191912,23,194624],"tags":[193308,193309,193311,193310,193312],"class_list":["post-47005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-activism","category-international-news","category-odd-news","tag-banksy","tag-banksy-auction","tag-girl-with-balloon","tag-girl-with-red-balloon","tag-sothebys","post_format-post-format-video"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/girl-with-balloon.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47005"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1204055,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47005\/revisions\/1204055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theaegisalliance.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}