<iframe src="//www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-K3L4M3" height="0" width="0" style="display:none;visibility:hidden">

Flat White

Banksy, Michael Spence and the shredding of 3000 years

11 October 2018

7:39 AM

11 October 2018

7:39 AM

“It appears we just got Banksy-ed.” So said Alex Branczik, the head of contemporary European art at the auction house Sotheby’s recently when the painting, Girl With Balloon—which had just sold for $1,936,000—started to self-shred. The mysterious artist posted the following video of the incident on Instagram with a quote from Picasso, “The urge to destroy is also a creative urge.”

Already a subscriber? Log in

Black Friday sale

Subscribe today and get 10 weeks of The Spectator Australia for just $1

  • Unlimited access to spectator.com.au and app
  • The weekly edition on the Spectator Australia app
  • Spectator podcasts and newsletters
  • Full access to spectator.co.uk
Or

Unlock this article

REGISTER


Comments

Black Friday sale

Subscribe today and get 10 weeks of The Spectator Australia for just $1

Already a subscriber? Log in

Close