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An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

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Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#251

Post by tomaskafka »

ljm wrote: post #201

Part of me feels like this stunt is clever because the nature of the performance improves the value of the work. So it's self-destructive in the technical sense of the term but it was designed in such a way to essentially transform the piece. While shocking in the moment, as the pictures of the scene show, the work has three separate qualities: the original significance of the piece, the new meaning it attains after…

> What would it say for a similar work of art to self destruct at a very glacial pace, and the only way to prevent degradation was to pay attention to it?

That's our society. Or Earth. In either case no one cares.

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#252

Post by kowdermeister »

docbrown wrote: post #216
cptskippy wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Banksy could have offered the owner the frame prior to the auction, without the owner being aware of what it did. That's very unlikely as it would take special care to mount the print in such a way that I would fall downward. Typically framed works are held in place.

Banksy is not typical, though. As noted in other articles, the auction house stated that the artist gave them the frame as it was an integral part of the artwork. This has been planned for some time it seems.

It's quite possible, but are there batteries that last 12 years?

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#253

Post by cthalupa »

CPLX wrote: post #221
avoutthere wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For an "anti-capitalist", he sure has a lot of books for sale on Amazon.

This is my least favorite criticism ever. “Like, hey man, if you’re complaining that the system is totally unfair and forces most people powerlessly into a narrow set of compromised choices, why are you making one of those choices?” When I worked with Tom Morello he used to get it all the time too. It’s a bogus argument. There’s no requirement that one leave the system they are in prior to expressing fundamental doub…

Tom Morello has been happy to use his fame and status to try and get his way with things.

https://www.facebook.com/The5PointCafe/posts/101526824416292...

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#254

Post by cthalupa »

vanderZwan wrote: post #156
zaroth wrote: post #124

This is just so impressive to me. That this was set in motion in 2006 with the engineering and frame design and executed perfectly 12 years later is just so magnificent I’m almost tearing up. The way the it was shredded and stopping halfway allows the piece to still be hung, and in my mind, this massively increases the notoriety and value of the piece. To prank Sotheby’s like this at the moment that the auctioneers g…

> Balloon Girl is a 2002 mural by graffiti artist Banksy depicting a young girl letting go of a red heart-shaped balloon. It's a 2006 copy of a 2002 mural[0]. There is no mention of where the copy originated from though, nor any indication that the frame was part of the 2006 piece. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloon_Girl

http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2018/contempo...

Sotheby's posts lot details on their site for all auctions. The provenance on this one is quite direct. Banksy -> "Current Owner" -> Whoever won the auction

Banksy himself made the frame.

However, rumor that I've seen among the art world is that Banksy was the "Current Owner" as well as the bidder. The piece sold for the exact same amount (to the pound) as his previous record Sotheby's auction. People are also not buying that Sotheby's wasn't in on it - wooden frames like this have to be verified to be free of pests like termites, etc., which the lot details report was done. It seems unlikely that in verifying the frame to be pest free they would have missed a motorized shredder in it. Especially since the shredded pieces had to go out somewhere...

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#255

Post by ultrabenos »

I honestly don't know why anyone at the auction, who was interested in that piece, thought there would be no trick or strings attached, or why Sotheby's didn't suspect anything after investigating Banksy. The wiki excerpt shown by Google says "Banksy is an anonymous England-based street artist, vandal, political activist, and film director." It then goes on to call his works satirical and focused on dark humour.

Anyone willing to spend £1,000,000 on a piece of art by Banksy should know enough about him to imagine that he'd hate auctioning his work to the rich at an elite establishment like Sotheby's.

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#256

Post by ironic_ali »

nyolfen wrote: post #243
avoutthere wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For an "anti-capitalist", he sure has a lot of books for sale on Amazon.

forsooth, the yeoman protests the carucage, and yet uses his plough of oak from the king's very forest!

Verily sire.

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#257

Post by code_duck »

wlesieutre wrote: post #245
code_duck wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“The website that rots, pixel by pixel, when it isn't viewed; or the application that subtly corrupts itself over time.” Just publish in a slightly obscure file format on physical media, and this is taken care of. Nobody will be able to access your art work in 20-40 years.

It'll make it eventually unusable, yeah, but that's not a public spectacle anymore. It feels more along the lines of shoving a painting into a cardboard box in a damp basement where nobody goes and letting it rot.

You could make a public spectacle of incompatible, limited hardware or a file format. It could even raise awareness of bit rot among consumers. I’ve been surprised by the fragility and ephemerality of possessions and creations in the digital age.

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#258

Post by TomMckenny »

avoutthere wrote: post #153
spuz wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please tell me which other ingenious and clever marketing stunts Banksy, the anti-capitalist artist who refuses to allow his work or even prints (with rare exceptions) to be sold is known for?

For an "anti-capitalist", he sure has a lot of books for sale on Amazon.

He makes things, by himself, and sells them.

And even then he puts the vast bulk of that labor in the public sphere from which he, since he necessarily denies making them, owns no IP.

How can this behavior possibly be criticized as exploitive?

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#259

Post by kronion »

ljm wrote: post #201

Part of me feels like this stunt is clever because the nature of the performance improves the value of the work. So it's self-destructive in the technical sense of the term but it was designed in such a way to essentially transform the piece. While shocking in the moment, as the pictures of the scene show, the work has three separate qualities: the original significance of the piece, the new meaning it attains after…

You might be interested in the work of the artist Eva Hesse. She experimented with materials like latex and fiberglass to create sculptures that were almost organic, with skeletons and skin. These materials are decomposing quickly, and while I couldn't find a source for this online, I believe she was intentionally using industrial processes that led to more rapid chemical breakdown. So her creations are (not so) slowly dying, and some are already unable to be displayed publicly, only 60 years after they were made. Perhaps some are only still around because museum curators are "paying attention." But if they can't be put on display anyway, what's the point of the life-support? And is it against Hesse's artistic intentions?

See http://blog.sevenponds.com/soulful-expressions/falling-into-...

Re: An artwork by Banksy shredded itself after selling for $1.3M at Sotheby’s

#260

Post by rzzzt »

fpgaminer wrote: post #211
ljm wrote: post #201

Part of me feels like this stunt is clever because the nature of the performance improves the value of the work. So it's self-destructive in the technical sense of the term but it was designed in such a way to essentially transform the piece. While shocking in the moment, as the pictures of the scene show, the work has three separate qualities: the original significance of the piece, the new meaning it attains after…

> And on an extra level, I have started to wonder how such a piece could be represented through programming. The website that rots, pixel by pixel, when it isn't viewed; or the application that subtly corrupts itself over time. I suppose that's also already true today. Unmaintained software rots; the OS moves on and the software no longer runs. DRMed software has its servers shut down. Online games get shut down. Etc…

Reddit had The Button: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Button_(Reddit)
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