Banksy’s “Girl with Red Balloon” Painting Gets Shredded at Auction, but Was it all Just a Stunt?

RE: Banksy’s “Girl with Red Balloon” Painting Gets Shredded at Auction, but Was it all Just a Stunt?

shabaz — Sun, 14 Oct 2018 04:51:44 GMT

I've been thinking of the legal implications of this.. (I have a qualification in this area but the Banksy scenario is way too complicated for me..). English law has some rules on when a contract is formed, and what happens if the situation changes after offer/acceptance, but there are many significant subtleties for certain situations (e.g. auctions, land sales, etc) which means it really is no longer easy to figure out (and I don't have any online access to legal databases, e.g. case law, which plays a huge role in the UK, nor the time to examine them (it can take many hours or days to even begin to briefly understand a single ruling sometimes).

Contracts in general are weird enough, for example there are some seemingly bizarre situations in UK law like it is possible to accept a contract by fax machine on a Friday night, but actually reject it on a Saturday by posting a letter, and the rejection would in theory take precedence. But the situation would flip and the fax would take precedence had we been talking about Thu and Fri, instead of Fri and Sat.. (all to do with when the acceptance or rejection is deemed to occur, and it is different for faxes and postal letters). Anyway that's a digression..

Anyway, in the Banksy situation if the buyer was unwilling to proceed with the contract, any court action against the auction house and/or seller would only result in financial considerations, since that is the courts usual remedy, for contractual obligations broken. (i.e. they won't ever force Banksy to burn the print and create another copy for the buyer, they'd rather just rule on a sum on money, for breaking the contract, or property damage, etc).

When the auction occurred, if what was going to occur was not previously brought to the attention of the buyer, then someone (the auction house and/or the seller) simply made a financial risk calculation, about the chances of the buyer rejecting the item after the auction.

I bet it was an easy risk calculation, because who would say no to the chance of now owning a very unique print of the girl+balloon, compared to all the other (now more boring) prints of it out there. I bet the buyer was delighted.

RE: Banksy’s “Girl with Red Balloon” Painting Gets Shredded at Auction, but Was it all Just a Stunt?

mcb1 — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 16:54:18 GMT

I'm calling this a hoax.

The video seems to be of the rear of the frame, and this makes it even weirder.

The pictures showing the blades is wrong, as they are at 90 degrees to the cut marks , and the fastening down doesn't seem enough to hold them.

The blades are not centered, and there are more than the number of cuts.

The image either side of the frame is about right distance but the shredded portion is exiting the frame closer to the wall, and this extra distance means the picture has stretched somewhat.

I suspect the original is safely inside, and the shredded copy was pre-loaded behind it and ejected out the bottom.

It seems strange that a picture of that magnitude was being auctioned with the picture behind the audience, most auctions I've seen have the auctioneer in front of the piece watching the audience to gauge a reaction or entice the bidding.

So why it was not in front of them I'm puzzled.

It has now increased in value, so who knows if it was planned or not.

Personally I do find it strange that no-one bothered checking the painting for authenticity which would have shown the inside of the frame was rigged.

Mark

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11139925

RE: Banksy’s “Girl with Red Balloon” Painting Gets Shredded at Auction, but Was it all Just a Stunt?

neilk — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 15:44:00 GMT

A very clever and shocking stunt! If the shredded painting is now worth more, then id definitely calls into question the value of art and, indeed, what is art?

As a famous (my legal team have forbidden me from being libellous) artist is alleged to have said: "If I say it's art then it's art".......

Do we agree?

Not sure I do.

Neil

RE: Banksy’s “Girl with Red Balloon” Painting Gets Shredded at Auction, but Was it all Just a Stunt?

shabaz — Sat, 13 Oct 2018 14:45:36 GMT

Nice photo on the Guardian website showing it a little more close-up.

(cropped from a photo at guardian.co.uk)[View:/resized-image/__size/620x464/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-ebd65d67-84d3-40e1-9aae-ea6a4e961211/2671.contentimage_5F00_188697.jpg:620:464]

I think it's a fascinating reminder how sometimes the electronics/mechanics price and effort are miniscule compared to the value of the final object, yet are crucial to the value of the entire thing.

I also like Enrico's Dancing Birds for similarities, in that the electronics can hide away, looking like just a static display, until the user interacts. Not that I'm comparing it to the Banksy.. but if I did, the Birds are better! : )

[View:/resized-image/__size/620x383/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-ebd65d67-84d3-40e1-9aae-ea6a4e961211/1185.contentimage_5F00_188698.jpg:620:383]

RE: Banksy’s “Girl with Red Balloon” Painting Gets Shredded at Auction, but Was it all Just a Stunt?

mp2100 — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 02:46:13 GMT

A great stunt. It will make the shredded painting worth even more. It’s not a cross-cut shredder. Straight line cut. I wish I’d been the bidder with $1.4mm. Cha-ching! Sell the shreddedpainting for $14 million! Many more people know about it now, it’s famous. Cash in. It’s a painting AND performance art all in one. Brilliant.

RE: Banksy’s “Girl with Red Balloon” Painting Gets Shredded at Auction, but Was it all Just a Stunt?

balearicdynamics — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 02:02:27 GMT

99% it's a stunt but Cabe,

I am considering making a shedding picture frame as a project. The utility comes in when you're tired of whatever is in it - shred it. [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-ebd65d67-84d3-40e1-9aae-ea6a4e961211/contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

You have suggested me a great project, pure art, and electronics, art-a-tronic (I founded this term and the idea with the plan to make operas with another artist friend, that is almost famous and will be my guest next October 20) ...

Take a look to the artist works, just in case, http://www.diginformale.it/ and (ore enjoyable) his youtube channel here https://www.youtube.com/user/diginformale/videos

About the girl with the red balloon instead, accomplishing the irony of Banksy, I embedded a video [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-ebd65d67-84d3-40e1-9aae-ea6a4e961211/contentimage_5F00_2516.png:16:16]

Enrico

[View:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La4Dcd1aUcE:740:466]

RE: Banksy’s “Girl with Red Balloon” Painting Gets Shredded at Auction, but Was it all Just a Stunt?

shabaz — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 01:49:55 GMT

Nice puzzle. It's a shame not everything is shown : ) but that keeps the value of the "art" high : )

This is my theory:

(orange=motor+belt, blue=rubber rollers, brown=wood sheet fitted during the video. Lines on paper=cuts).

[View:/resized-image/__size/620x363/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-ebd65d67-84d3-40e1-9aae-ea6a4e961211/1641.contentimage_5F00_188691.png:620:363]

It is hard though to figure out much from the video.. it appears that the gap where the shredded painting egresses could be where the line is visible? (I marked with a yellow arrow):

[View:/resized-image/__size/1176x660/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-ebd65d67-84d3-40e1-9aae-ea6a4e961211/8507.contentimage_5F00_188692.jpg:1176:660]

The entire frame isn't shown since it has yet to be nailed/glued on top, and the painting fitted. Plus no rubber rollers to pull on the paper from the blades yet. Weird how the blades are in an interesting angle, but maybe he later cuts slits in the wood beneath the bar, to fit them in the correct position.

Also it must still be a work in progress when the video showed it being covered, because the line drawn is visible in the image below, presumably where the cover needs to be cut (or slot created) to feed in the painting. I wonder why the rectangular window was required too (maybe it was some idea to detect how far the paper had got, to switch it off? Or a way to gain access without ripping everything apart.). And maybe in the photo above, the metal area at the bottom of the frame has a couple of rubber rollers, since there are many hex machine screws there, so they must be going into a metal structure or chassis, with rollers surely. The motors could be turning those rollers.

[View:/resized-image/__size/1175x659/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-ebd65d67-84d3-40e1-9aae-ea6a4e961211/3730.contentimage_5F00_188693.jpg:1175:659]

Anyway, it could be a different frame (or modified later), because it looks different in the screenshot from the video below. The sides look smooth at the base of the frame where it touches the wall, whereas in the photos above, the base has contours/moulding shape. But maybe the camera wasn't focused great for the screenshot below.

[View:/resized-image/__size/1014x918/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-ebd65d67-84d3-40e1-9aae-ea6a4e961211/2234.contentimage_5F00_188694.jpg:1014:918]

When it started egressing, it did have a kink in it, which could be where the paper had the elbow consisting of where the blades were, and where the roller was:

[View:/resized-image/__size/602x1427/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-ebd65d67-84d3-40e1-9aae-ea6a4e961211/3704.contentimage_5F00_188695.png:602:1427]

Anyway, it's all guesswork. Or is it..

Banksy Shabaz. [View:/resized-image/__size/16x16/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-ebd65d67-84d3-40e1-9aae-ea6a4e961211/3630.contentimage_5F00_1.png:16:16]

RE: Banksy’s “Girl with Red Balloon” Painting Gets Shredded at Auction, but Was it all Just a Stunt?

Gough Lui — Tue, 09 Oct 2018 23:21:08 GMT

It definitely seems to be a stunt, and artists are not far from being known to try and elevate their profile. But I'd have to say, it's a clever and evocative one, as a number of people online have commented - it has a "shock" value, it's a piece of performance art, it ridicules the whole notion of the value of art (as some have commented its appreciation post-shred due to its uniqueness), while also imparting a sense of "loss" in the observers in the same way the girl has (in the painting) lost her balloon.

There was a video posted about it - which was also anomalous as a number of people pointed out that the blades used to "shred" the item were oriented strangely. The video was since removed.

Ultimately, there are some people who are great at manipulating the media for their own goals - this one's spread like viral wildfire and I think that was exactly the intention.

- Gough

EDIT: As for battery, a Lithium battery wouldn't be inconceivable in terms of lasting long enough. With uCs in deep sleep, waking up only periodically (e.g. 10s+ of seconds), the power budget may have been satisfied. If not, rechargeable Lithium Ion battery + something like a semi-transparent thin-film solar panel or built into the frame? Or other energy harvesting solution sufficient to overcome the quiescent draw.