People stood absolutely aghast at Sotheby’s as a framed print of Banksy’s mural, the ‘Balloon Girl’ automatically began shredding just seconds after it was auctioned for a cool $1.4 million. The shredder was cleverly built inside the artpiece’s frame, and designed by Banksy himself. The idea was to completely shred the painting in front of the buyer’s eyes, giving consumerism a monumental middle finger, but the shredder failed mid-way, with the print half-inside intact, and half-outside shredded.
Lesha Limonov’s concept postcards for the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam) play on this very moment, with prints that shred as you tug on a tab at the base. When the postcard descends downwards, you not only witness the shredding, but you also get to read the message behind the artpiece, on the frame (wouldn’t it be wonderful if Banksy had a snarky message written behind his artpiece too?!)
Designer: Lesha Limonov for Rijksmuseum
