In 2018, a paper mill hidden in the canvas had been operated in full sales of Sotheby’s. Thursday, the work was sold for a price multiplied by eighteen.
Le Monde with AFP
The canvas girl in balloon, from Banksy, whose partial self-destruction three years ago had been auctioned, was sold in London, Thursday, October 14, for nearly 18.6 million pounds (21 , 9 million euros), a record for the British artist.
In 2018, just after a first acquisition, a crusher concealed in the frame had reduced the lower half of the fabric during the auction, already organized by the Sotheby’s house – the sale had just ended, at 1.2 million euros. This resounding action, which had provoked many reactions in the art, has been claimed by the mysterious street artist with the ambition to denounce the “merchandization” of art. The work was then renamed Love is in the bin (“Love is in the trash”).
“The most spectacular artistic happening of the XXI e century”
Sotheby’s has described the destruction of “most spectacular artistic happening of the XXI e century”, placing it in the “anti-establish art legacy that started with [the movement] Dada and Marcel Duchamp “. “During this surrealist evening three years ago, I became accident the privileged owner of Love is in the bin,” said the buyer, cited in a Sotheby’s statement in early September. But now it’s time to part with it. “
Even before the sale, the graff, made of the stencil on a wall of the south shore of London in 2002, had been designated as the favorite artwork of the British. The sale exceeds the previous record reached in March by Game change, another Banksy canvas highlighted the caregivers in the pandemic of Covid-19, sold for 16.75 million pounds (19.8 million euros) for the benefit of the British Public Service.