Banksy

As the final hammer fell in the Contemporary Art Evening Auction at Sotheby’s last week, history was made: it marked the first time a piece of live performance art had been sold at auction. As the packed saleroom looked on, the final lot of the sale — Banksy’s Girl with Balloon — was in the midst of an intense bidding battle from buyers in the room and on the phones, but what was to follow has dominated headlines the world over, taking the art world by storm and prompting speculation and debate. Seconds after the hammer fell, part of the canvas passed through a hidden shredder, and in the process of ‘destroying’ the artwork, a new one was created.