Banksy's 'Girl With Red Balloon' image ''automatically shredded'' after being sold at auction.
Bizarre on Female First
The iconic painting led Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Sale in London on Friday (05.10.18) and sold for £1,042,000 - including a buyer's premium - at around 9pm but moments after the hammer struck for the winning bidder, the piece rolled through an in-built shredder and came out of the bottom in strips.
Shortly after the incident, Banksy uploaded a video to his Instagram account seemingly taking responsibility for the destruction.
The post was captioned: '''The urge to destroy is also a creative urge' - Picasso''.
During the beginning of the video, text read: ''A few years ago, I secretly built a shredder into a painting, incase it was ever put up for auction...''
Viewers could then see the artist concealing a shredder into the frame of the famous painting and the Sotheby's incident unfolding after it was sold to a phone bidder.
In a statement, the auctioneers said: ''The unexpected incident became instant art world folklore and certainly marks the first time in auction history that a work of art automatically shredded itself after coming under the hammer.''
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