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Banksy’s shredded  Love is in the Bin will return to Sotheby’s New Bond Street galleries this October, at four to six times the price. Passing through a hidden shredder just seconds after the hammer fell on a million pound bid, the “nation’s favourite artwork” – Girl with a Balloon – seemingly auto-destructed in 2018 while hanging on the wall in Sotheby’s packed auction room. Capturing the world by surprise, this unexpected piece of performance art became instant art history, making it the first time a new work had been created in the course of an auction.

In the days that followed, the shredded artwork was granted a new certificate and date by Pest Control, Banksy’s authentication body, and given the new title, Love is in the Bin. The collector who had placed the record winning bid on Girl with Balloon decided to keep the new work.* Looking back on the event, she explains: “That surreal evening three years ago, I became the accidental – but very privileged – owner of Love is in the Bin. It has been an incredible journey to have been part of the story of how one of the most famous artworks in the world came to be, but now it is time to let the painting go.”

It will come up at the Contemporary Art evening auction at Sotheby’s in London on October 14 – this time with an estimate of £4-£6 million.

Banksy’s Show me the Monet  comes up at Sotheby’s in London on October 21 with an estimate of £3-5 million.  It is from the Crude Oils series where the artist remixes well known artworks. Among other works in the series are Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers portrayed wilting or dead; Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks augmented by an angry man in Union Jack boxer shorts moments after breaking the bar window with a chair, and Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe re-faced with Kate Moss. The artist is quoted saying: “If you want to survive as a graffiti writer when you go indoors, I figured your only option is to carry on painting over things that don’t belong to you there either.”  According to Sotheby’s Show me the Monet may be interpreted as a comment on consumerist culture, a criticism of the commercialisation of art, a lament for the demise of the environment, or all of the above. Painted in 2005 it will highlight a livestream auction which brings together two sales of Modern and Contemporary art held in sequence in Paris and London. 

UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £7.6 MILLION

There was a welcome shot in the arm for the fundraising efforts of a hospital in Bethlehem this evening thanks to a very generous charitable donation by the anonymous street artist Banksy. His trio of found seascape paintings reworked into a pointed response to the refugee crisis sold for £2,235,000 at Sotheby’s cross departmental global online Rembrandt to Richter sale. The tripartite work by Banksy, Mediterranean Sea View 2017, features empty orange life jackets symbolising European bound migrants who drowned.

Donated by the artist the paintings had been estimated at £800,000-1.2 million. They were the focus of spirited bidding. Since being created they have hung above the fireplace of Banksy’s Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem in Jerusalem’s West Bank. The proceeds will go towards a new acute stroke unit and children’s rehabilitation equipment at the Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation.

The flagship summer Rembrandt to Richter sale realised £150 million.