How much would you pay for a shredded artwork? Today’s the day we’ll find out what mischievous artist Banksy’s half-shredded canvas, Love is in the Bin, is worth.
The work was originally the “nation’s favourite artwork”, Girl with Balloon, before it passed through a hidden shredder just seconds after it was sold for £1.1 million in 2018. In the days that followed, the shredded artwork was granted a new certificate and date by Pest Control, Banksy’s authentication body, and given its new title. And unsurprisingly the collector who had placed the record winning bid decided to keep it.
Tonight, it returns to Sotheby’s New Bond Street Galleries, almost three years to the date since the artwork shredded, and it has been tipped to make several times that amount (it has a pre-sale estimate of between £4m-£6m) during the Contemporary Art Evening Auction.
Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s chairman, modern and contemporary art, says: “Love is in the Bin was born of the most spectacular artistic happening of the 21st century. When Girl with Balloon ‘self-destructed’ in our saleroom, Banksy sparked a global sensation that has since become a cultural phenomenon. During that memorable night, Banksy did not so much destroy an artwork by shredding it, but instead created one. Today, this piece is considered heir to a venerated legacy of anti-establishment art that began with Dada and Marcel Duchamp more than a century ago. Notorious, daring, and culturally ubiquitous, Love is in the Bin is the ultimate Banksy artwork and a true icon of recent art history.”
Hailed as “Banksy’s greatest work” by The Guardian and predicted by the BBC as a painting “that will come to be seen as one of the most significant artworks of the early 21st Century”, Love is in the Bin sparked more than 30,000 global news stories and we expect there will be a few more tomorrow. Happy bidding here!