An art collector who owned an $80,000 Banksy print shredded the piece to emulate Banksy, reducing its value to $1.
The shredding follows the stunt that Banksy pulled at Sotheby’s Auction House in London last week (October 5). One of his most iconic paintings was put up to auction and sold for $1.1 million, only to self-destruct via a shredding mechanism in the frame moments later.
The copycat used a Stanley knife to copy the shredding prank on his $80,000 print, of which there were only 600 copies in the world. He had hoped that mimicking Banksy’s stunt would double the painting’s value, only experts have described the copy as “opportunistic vandalism” and have re-valued the painting at $1.
The co-founder of MyArtBroker.com, Ian Syer, spoke about the event to the Daily Mail: “When Banksy does something crazy like shredding his own artwork, it will naturally have a dramatic effect on values.
“What this person today seems to have done is needlessly ruin a print worth around $80,000 and reduce its value to almost nothing. We strongly recommend nobody else takes valuable art and tries to cash in on what history will judge a simply brilliant stunt.”
