Banksy explains how Girl with Balloon shredding stunt went wrong in new video
Banksy has appeared to suggest his million-pound painting, Girl with Balloon, which was partially shredded immediately after it was sold at auction was supposed to have been cut up completely.
The secretive street artist posted a video to his website on Tuesday night which showed the prank unfold at a Sotheby's sale on October 5.
It was bought for £1.04 million by a European art collector - but almost as soon as the hammer fell, the canvas was passed through a secret shredder hidden in the large Victorian-style frame.
In the video, entitled Shred the Love, the Director's Cut, Banksy reveals that "in rehearsals" the shredding had worked "every time", with footage of a test run showing a print passing through the shredder completely, so that none of the canvas remained intact.
The artist also confirmed the auction house had not been let into the secret, posting on Instagram: "Some people think it didn't really shred. It did. Some people think the auction house were in on it, they weren't."
The three-minute-long video shows a hooded figure constructing the shredder in a workshop, before cutting to the auction, where a pair of hands presses a button in a black box to set off the destruction as soon as the artwork is sold.
After the prank, the piece was granted certification by Pest Control, Banksy's authentication body, and was given the new title Love Is In The Bin.
Sotheby's confirmed that the buyer, a long-standing female client of the prestigious auction house, had agreed to buy the work for the price agreed at auction.