He wants to imitate Banksy and shreds a £40,000 original. Now worth a pound

The website MyArtBroker, which specializes in art brokerage services, said it has received a contact request from a collector, owner of one of the original six hundred copies of Banksy’sGirl with balloon (Girl with balloon), with an estimated value of 40,000 pounds, who cut up the work exactly as Banksy did last Friday at Sotheby’s, hoping that the operation would raise the value of the work. In reality, the collector did not enact a performance, but simply vandalized the work, with the result that now, according to MyArtBroker experts, his work is worth one pound.

Indeed,Ian Syer, co-founder of MyArtBroker, explained, “Banksy is unique in the art world. No other artist captures the hearts and minds of the public like he does. However, when Banksy does something crazy like shredding one of his own works, obviously the action will have very strong effects on the value of the work. What this person seems to have done today is to have unnecessarily ruined a print worth about 40,000 pounds by reducing its value to practically nothing. We recommend that no one else take a valuable work and try to speculate on what history will judge to be a simply brilliant stunt. Prints of the Girl with the Balloon are in a limited number in the world, we lost one today and this is a deplorable disgrace.”

MyArtBroker has let it be known that already several owners of Banksy prints have called the site to find out if the shredded work might see its value rise. But the experts’ advice can only be one: avoid subjecting the work to intervention at all costs.

Pictured (copyright MyArtBroker) is the work shredded by the unwary collector.

He wants to imitate Banksy and shreds a £40,000 original. Now worth a pound

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