http://instagram.com/p/Bokffj2iHMM

Totally brilliant and ruthless.

genius!

There’s only ONE Banksy!So unique!Crazy

This is everything... sending The Forum into meltdown

GOAT!

The faces in the auction room were to die for! ( haven't seen any video if any 1 does please post!)

Question: is this piece now actually more valuable as part of Art history, will buyer complete on the purchase

If not sure someone else will.

Whilst I think this is a very fun stunt, anyone who thinks Sotheby's wasn't involved very naïve.

Any movies of it? So brilliant!

"I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit”.
Bansky is above all a marketing genius and a fine satirical social commentator but yesterday he personally orchestrated his absolute masterpiece even against his own strongest British aficionados (a hardcore bunch of traders, galleries, collectors but above all ruthless speculators) known as Morons. Everything happened in less than 24 hours when first at Sotheby’s NYC were auctioned the “artistic” belongings of the late Robin Williams (another master of irony) featuring some Banskies including a Christ with shopping bags (hammered at US$ 80,000), a Heavy Weaponry (canvas) at US$ 110,000 and finally a large multiple of Happy Choppers (a large canvas multiple) at US$ 600,000. All these results were well below the expectations of the ruthless aficionados because you need to consider that a large “premium” on these hammer results comes from the added value that these art pieces once belong to the celebrity Robin Williams (see Sotheby’s David Bowie auction in November 2016). But yesterday evening in London the surreal comedy was fantastic where Banksy personally orchestrated the ultimate joke against all the morons.
For some weeks ago his entourage leaked that the “Girl With The Balloon” unique canvas was going to break the limit of 1 million £, while few speculators hold their breath (and their other canvases) to see how to take the best advantage from this situation. Yesterday the art piece just break the 1 Million limit (much probably bought directly by somebody of the Banksy entourage, like Damien Hirst did with his well know diamond skull) and right after the hammer the piece magically auto-shredded resulting a big joke for all the morons.
But in the very same auction (with a total sale of £33,865,900) Lucio Fontana, Alighiero Boetti and surprisingly even Kaws results really hit the UK£ million and Jenny Saville 1992 self-portrait “Propped” set an auction record for any artwork by a living female artist with £ 9.5 million ($ 12.4) at Sotheby’s.
I am sure Banksy is still laughing now because after all "……a laughter will bury you all" (Michail Aleksandrovic Bakunin)

I was thinking the same. I think it could have been meant to shred the whole image so that it stops shredding at the very top of the canvas to let the whole image show under the frame.

Pure genius. What a statement, and what a way to make it.

The irony is that the shredded canvas might become a legendary piece, so the buyer might still want to go ahead with the purchase. And that's another statement in itself.

My Congratulations to the high bidder.

You now own one of the most famou$ paintings in the world.

Having seen the 'canvas' last week, I must confess that it didn't look right, especially if it was from 2006. Plus the 'paper' was so dirty too which was odd. That said, this is genius and surely Sotheby's were in on it.

The unique piece is more unique now.