Recently a painting by an unknown grafitti artist in Britain shredded itself moments after being sold. The painting sold for approximately $1.4 million. The artist had built a shredder into the frame that started shortly after the hammer fell.

https://www.cnn.com/style/amp/banksy-painting-self-destructs-auction-trnd/index.html

https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/sothebys-gets-banksyed-at-contemporary-art-auction-in-london?locale=en

1.What are your thoughts on this?

I think this a funny and ironic prank by the artist, but an unfortunate tragedy for the buyer.

2. Why do you think the artist did this?

I think the author was trying to show how materialistic the world is and how uneccessary things like expensive paintings are.

You need to be a member of History 360 to add comments!

Join History 360

Replies are closed for this discussion.

Replies

  • Your summary is way too brief and you didn't reply to any student comments which is worth 20 points.

  • I think that it was very unexpected this happened to the buyer. I fell like he should get what he payed for, instead of trying to trick him. But I also think that the painter did this to show a life lesson that a drawing/painting piece of art should not cost this much when it could easly be worthless.

  • I think thats intresting And cool. I wonder how he did that. I mean who else can say they put a paper shreadder into a picture frame. Maybe to show sometimes art work can be shreadded but still be pieced together. Maybe it's showing how broken something can be and it can be put back together. I think this was a good idea of showing what art can go through and still be okay.

  • I think this is horrible im not a huge fan of art work, but I know that art can be very expensive at times and thats something not to mess with. I have no idea, but the buyer should of been made aware of this horrible feature. Why waste all that money if its going to be ruined right after buying. 

  • This is funny but the buyer was probably upset. I think artist did this to maybe show that money is worth everything but can be taken away in seconds, or maybe the artist wanted a good laugh who knows. 

  • I think that this was definitely an interesting thing for the artist to do, and I don't know their reasoning by it but if I was in that position, I wouldn't shred my art. The artist may have been trying to prove a point when his painting was sold for $1.4 million, like the fact that paintings that expensive aren't always necessary.

  • This "prank" is kind of weird and I don't think it was expected at all, but this happening after the owner already paid 1.4 million for it is really disappointing, or at least it would be for me knowing that I spent a bunch of money on a fallout. I honestly don't know why the artist did this, it was kind of a rude thing to do. 

  • I think that it's a good way to, like you said, show how the world is so materialistic. I still think that there should have been a painting behind it though, so the buyer didn't just get an empty frame. Just try hidding if behind the wood back of the frame to give people the same scare. But, at the same time, we don't know who the graffiti artist is, so it very well could just be a sick joke played on the buyers.

  • I think that by shredding the painting, the value of it actually went up. This story has received so much buzz around the world that if the buyer tried to sell it, I think he could get much more than he paid because of all the attention from the publicity it has received.

  • I think it is kinda weird. It is kinda funny because the person just paid 1.4 million dollars for a childish prank. I have no clue why he would have done it, but my guess is that he just wanted to have a good, humorous joke.

This reply was deleted.
eXTReMe Tracker