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- Banksy partially shredded one of his paintings after it was auctioned in 2018.
- The half-shredded painting may go for up to $7.13 million. The winning bid in 2018 was $1.3 million.
- The painting, "Girl with Balloon," went through a secret shredder installed inside the bottom edge of the frame.
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A Banksy painting that was partially – and unexpectedly – shredded in 2018 may go for almost six times its original price when it's auctioned again this October, Bloomberg reported.
The original painting, titled "Girl With Balloon," was sent through a secret shredder hidden in the painting's large frame after the auction closed with a winning bid of 1.1 million euros ($1.3 million).
Now re-titled "Love is in the Bin," the bottom half of the painting is shredded in vertical strips, and only the red, heart-shaped balloon is visible in the frame. When "Love is in the Bin" returns to the Sotheby's auction, it is estimated to sell for $4.75 million to $7.13 million.
The moment of the partial shredding was captured on video, and quickly made headlines as the audience was caught off guard.
"It appears we just got Banksy-ed," Alex Branczik, senior director and head of contemporary art at Sotheby's, said in a statement after the painting was shredded.
Banksy is an anonymous, England-based artist known for his street art and often anti-establishment messages. "Girl with Balloon" began as a graffiti mural, but is now one of the artist's most recognizable paintings. After the original painting was shredded, someone assumed to be Banksy posted an Instagram video of a person in a hoodie tinkering with a shredder in the painting.
"A few years ago I secretly built a shredder into a painting," the caption read. "In case it was ever put up for auction…"