LONDON, Oct. 14 (Reuters) – A photo of Banksy being half-sliced ​​by a shredder concealed in its frame during its auction grossed £ 18.6million ($ 25.4million) when it went under hammer in the same room in London on Thursday.

Onlookers gasped as the then-titled “Balloon Girl” was sucked into a shredder as the hammer fell following an offer of 1,042,000 pounds at an October 2018 auction. at Sotheby’s in London.

“Some people think it didn’t really shred. It does. Some people think the auction house was in the game, it wasn’t.”

the street artist, whose identity is a well-kept secret, said on Instagram in 2018.

Now called “Love is in the Bin”, the work sold for 18,582,000 pounds, more than three times the peak of its price estimate of 4 to 6 million pounds and an auction record for the artist.

“I can’t tell you how terrified I am of dropping that hammer,” Sotheby’s auctioneer Oliver Barker joked after a 10-minute auction.

Sotheby’s said the work fits into an illustrious history of anti-art, including the anonymous submission by Marcel Duchamp of Fountain, a porcelain urinal reassembled on a pedestal in 1917, to Ai Weiwei, who is is pictured intentionally dropping an alleged Han Dynasty urn.

“When Girl with Balloon destroyed herself in our auction room, Banksy sparked a global sensation that has since become a cultural phenomenon,” said Alex Branczik, President of Sotheby’s for Modern and Contemporary Art.

“During that momentous night, Banksy didn’t so much destroy a work of art by shredding it, but rather created one. Today, this piece is considered to be the heir to a revered legacy of the world. anti-establishment art. “

($ 1 = 0.7310 pounds)

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Jane Merriman and Nick Macfie

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