UKC

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-45770028

I do like Banksy, he produces some great images and he does entertain. 

Just heard the story on the radio. Genius.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bokt2sEhlsu/?utm_source=ig_embed

Great photo.

I suspect thefe was a bit of complicity on all sides, but its a lovely stunt

Always thought Banksy was more hype than talent and this just confirms my opinion.

Do you not think that you might be missing the point - that hype IS the talent and publicity, rather than the artwork itself, IS the art?

I’d imagine the logistics of getting a shredder, power and RC into the frame presents their own challenges. Top effort for just managing that.

A lot of other Banksy owners will be nervously looking at their picture frames.

A lot of his early stuff is very witty, but that's the street stencils. I'm not sure about his later stuff in art galleries etc. It just doesn't hold up in an art gallery really, it's the wrong context. This stunt is pretty witty though to be fair.

So bullshitting and confidence tricks are a part of artistic talent ?

There's a long like of this type of thing, unmade beds, piles of bricks, IKB, An Oak Tree - fortunately the great unwashed can see straight through it.   

I'm now imagining if Banksy had got that Westminster Abbey gig instead of Hockney.

He'd likely have come up with something intricate and beautiful then paid a bunch of kids to throw stones at it.  

“Art is a lie that tells the truth.” Pablo Picasso

The sane man must ask whether he should give this pretentious stuff the  time of day in aesthetic terms.

Worth 6 minutes of your time

youtube.com/watch?v=atHQpANmHCE&

If artists do see fields blue they are deranged, and should go to an asylum. If they only pretend to see them blue, they are criminals and should go to prison. (Adolf Hitler)

Maybe a bit extreme but I get the drift,

You have to be careful Tom, one day you're just having a bit of a grumble about modern art, the next thing you know you're planning the invasion of Poland.

Edit: typo.

Woosh. You're spectacularly missing the point.

Is this brilliant art, that speaks to the soul? No.

Is it a razor sharp piss-take of the art world, of wealth, of consumerism, of commodification of creativity...and was it superbly executed so that no one knows quite what is real and what is fake...?

Ancients of Mu Mu. 

To make a career out of biting the hand that feeds is pretty clever - I think his next-level trolling of the art world is much more fun than the street stencil things.

Yeah. But that was quite bad and disturbing, rather than hilarious and witty.

You class burning £1m as being bad and disturbing, do you?... God only knows what you made of the multi-billion bailout of the banking system? 

I'm not sure they make a particularly good direct comparison. There are a lot of things in the world more bad and disturbing than the KLF, but not all of them are satirical art stunts. Unless I completely misunderstood the financial crisis of 2008...perhaps I've underestimated Bill Drummond et at?

Oh, do come on!...

Drummond? Shaven, suited, and booted? It's Fred Goodwin, innit!?! 

I can't believe that this escaped you. 

if that's the case and the artist didn't profit financially by it then I applaud him.

I worry that someone might justify the crap turned out by Klein and Michael Craig Martin on similar grounds, though.

I’m guessing the last 101 years of postmodernism have passed you by. I recommend you seek out Beginners Guide to Postmodernism which is a well written intro to the art and philosophy of the movement. Once you understand it I suspect you’ll appreciate it more.

I think Tracy Emin’s Bed is one of the most important British artworks of the 90s. 

You couldn't be more wrong. 

 I'm not sure about the precise definition of postmodern art but remember one critic describing it as modernism at the end of its tether.

It hasn't passed me by at all; rather, I have simply rejected most of it.

I spent an enjoyable couple of hours at a Lee Miller exhibition the Hepworth on Thursday, as I do three or four times a year, and as usual it was a case of mentally sorting out the wheat from the chaff. Some of the stuff that was good was very, very good.

The most disappointing thing was seeing that they'd removed my favourite William Scott painting.

I'd be more convinced by this if it had been a cross-cut shredder, turning it into thousands of little bits, rather than only half-shredding it into strips and as such leaving it fully recognisable. It's probably 'worth' twice what it sold for now.

Doesn’t say a lot for Sotheby’s security; being able to smuggle batteries, wires and mechanical bits within the frame.
Instead of an amusing stunt this could have been a lot worse.

Too right, Imagine if Keith Moon had put it together.

Maybe I am missing the point, never thought of it like that.

Do like to see a little more talent on the painting side rather than on the self-promotion side.

There's a still from the video that Banksy posted showing the mechanism and some discussion of the problems here:

https://hackaday.com/2018/10/07/banksys-barely-believable-batteries/

Looking at that still I don't see how the shredder is supposed to work.  The blades look to be parallel to the canvas when if you wanted them to cut presumably you'd want them at right angles, the motors don't look like they could drive the canvas through the blades effectively - you'd think there would be rollers and gearing to drive it through like in a real shredder or a printer - and if the blades are mounted that far into the frame what is keeping the strips nicely aligned with the slit on the bottom of the frame.  

There's also the issue of the lifetime of batteries allegedly put in 12 years ago and the fact that that mechanism is pretty bulky and heavy.  How come nobody wondered about the weight, extra thickness and strange centre of gravity compared to a normal picture (and the slit at the bottom where the strips emerge).   Maybe the mechanism was swapped in by an accomplice not long before the auction.

Exactly.  I imagine that’s one of the points he’s making.

The obsessive commodification of art is a theme of most of his work.  His street works started as criminal damage and ended up so valuable that they are being stolen from the walls on which they are painted.

The daft thing is that this item is probably now worth more to the art world than it was before and the artist knows this, why else would the shredding have stopped half wau leaving a nice clean dangling bit rather than a pile on the floor. I suspect that the real canvas wasn't shredded and only concealed while some random paper print was rolled out. Anyhow, it was fun to look at the face of the blpke one to the left of the picture as it happened.

I thought it was hilarious, especially the look on people's faces.
It would've been even better if it disappeared in a puff of smoke/self combusted, leaving a pile of ash on the floor.

Does anyone know if the buyer still has to pay for it?

ps. If anyone reading this thread hasn't seen "Exit through the gift shop" then they really should.

Probaby not.

Did Banksy do something illegal or merely complete the artwork as planned?

would it retain its value if it never actually got shredded?

It's a little-known fact that Leonardo da Vinci invented the shredder and has placed one (clockwork) in the frame below the Mona Lisa. It is timed to go off in the year 2020

However it was done it's quite the set-up if he really has been waiting over a decade for the opportunity to pull the trigger!

jk