The Auction That Made Everyone Sit Up and Take Notice of Banksy

It’s only natural to panic when a £1 million piece of art is shredded before your eyes

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Janice Tibballs was sixty-one years old and a widow. She was also wealthy. She was wealthy because she married a rich husband now dead. The old fella’s heart gave out when he reached one hundred and one.

Janice had not expected thirty years of marriage to stretch into her sixties. She was no longer the good-looking woman she had been when she was a bride. As the years passed and her husband’s health declined, she found herself increasingly drawn to art.

On October 5, 2018, Janice Tibballs was sitting at the back of Sotheby’s Auction House. The room was full of collectors, dealers and spectators hoping to witness something memorable. None of them knew quite how memorable it would become.

Janice had her eye on a simple painting of a young girl, stenciled in black and grey tones, reaching towards a heart-shaped red balloon as it drifted away. The artwork carried a guide price of £200,000 — £300,000.

The hammer fell on her final bid of £860,000. The floor erupted in applause.

A loud beeping sound suddenly cut through the revelry and silenced the room. Janice Tibballs looked across at her purchase in disbelief as the Girl With Balloon descended through its gilt frame in shreds. Her incredulity turned to panic as the artwork was destroyed.

The artist behind the caper is known as Banksy. He released an image of the shredding on Instagram with the words “Going, going gone.”

This was the seminal moment. The moment I stopped seeing Banksy as a talented graffiti artist and started seeing him as a genius.

Banksy has never publicly confirmed his identity.

By shredding his painting, Banksy pulled off the craziest stunt in art history. Using a remote-controlled, built-in shredder concealed within the frame, three-quarters of the Girl With Balloon was cut into narrow strips moments after its sale.

Girl with Balloon is one of Banksy's most iconic images. It first appeared as a mural in London in 2002. It’s such a simple image, yet I found it powerful. Hypnotic even. There is no crowd, no background, no explanation. The girl’s hair is blowing in the wind. She has lost her grip on the balloon, and it is floating away as if lost to her forever.

Her outstretched hand makes her look forlorn. I can’t help but feel for her. And then I remember the people I have lost, and I too am overcome with melancholy. I want to grab hold of them again, but life isn’t like that. I can only stand and watch as they disappear into the distance, like a little red, heart-shaped balloon.

Banksy clearly has a conscience. Many of his works are social commentary.

“When the looting starts, the shooting starts” was originally used by Walter E. Headley, the police chief of Miami, Florida, in response to an outbreak of violent crime during the 1967 Christmas holiday season.

He accused “young hoodlums” of taking “advantage of the civil rights campaign” that was then sweeping the United States. Incredibly, he ordered his officers to combat the violence with shotguns and told the press that “we don’t mind being accused of police brutality.”

Banksy’s “You Loot, We Shoot” was on point. The image appeared in March 2018 in New York City.

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The stencil shows a sharply dressed businessman — identified by a New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) badge — fleeing down the street while clutching large wads of US dollars. The piece flips the infamous law-and-order slogan on its head, portraying financial greed rather than street crime as the real theft.

It’s a running theme in Banksy’s work. He asks an uncomfortable question: why do some crimes attract punishment while others attract influence, lawyers and pardons?

His artwork reflects his disdain for authority. The following image, Stick Police, suggests he has been on the wrong end of encounters with the law. The police officers are pursuing a criminal: a street artist? The exaggerated movements of their quarry ridicule either their efforts and/or their purpose.

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I love that he isn’t always serious. His depictions of British police officers have always made me smile:

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They are just people. They have the shitty days just like everyone else. They reflect society with all their foibles, feelings and fantasies. It’s simply that he expects them to hold themselves to a higher standard. That they should be honest, fair and tolerant. He doesn’t miss.

People make mistakes. Police officers make mistakes. All should be held to account and, at the very least, learn from them.

I have found myself looking at his work and immersing myself in my thoughts. Below, the irrational limits that a security state can reach are perfectly demonstrated with Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz being searched by a police officer.

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His depiction of two children running through water is an iconic image. It seems irreverent, yet Jack and Jill frollicking and laughing in childhood play are at odds with the sombre stab-proof ‘police’ vests worn for their protection. I see it as a statement on today’s society where innocence is all but lost.

I am also taken with Banksy’s sense of humour.

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The rat has that look of a teenager getting up to pee at three o’clock in the afternoon, then raiding through the fridge for something edible— I know, I’ve had three of them.

If you are a parent and experiencing this, it passes.

I have a picture of Banksy in my head as a supremely modest man. Without knowing him, I like him. Had he paraded himself across social media in the shameless way some celebrities court fans, fame and praise, I’d be less inclined to think so highly of him.

His originality makes him very much identifiable. The artwork he produces is simple, beautiful and thought-provoking. Graffiti artists are prone to colour and paint and splash and swirl with abandon.

The deliberate, understated Banksy almost always stops me in my tracks.

As for Janice Tibballs, once the panic subsided. Once the auction house returned to a calmer state, and after much consideration, she went ahead with the purchase. Including fees, Girl With Balloon set her back £1.4 million.

The partially shredded work was given a new title, Love Is in the Bin. Sotheby’s released a statement that called it “the first artwork in history to have been created live during an auction.

Love Is in the Bin was itself sold at Sotheby’s for £18 million in October 2021

[embed]Banksy’s Shredding the Girl and Balloon — The Director’s half cut

Author’s Note: The actual purchaser of the Girl With Balloon remains anonymous. Janice Tibballs is a figure from my imagination.

All images taken by the author at The Banksy Museum, Lisbon.