Slash and burn: does artistic sabotage always pay off?

Never has the vandalism of art appeared so lucrative. Later this month, Banksy's Subject to Availability (2009), a "vandalised" version of an oil painting by the 19th-century artist Albert Bierstadt, goes up for sale in Christie's 20th century sale, estimated at £3m to £5m. Meanw...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inArt newspaper (International ed.) Vol. 30; no. 335
Main Author Pryor, Riah
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London The Art Newspaper 01.06.2021
EditionInternational ed.
Subjects
Art exhibits
Auctions
Banksy
Oil painting
Visual artists
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Summary:Never has the vandalism of art appeared so lucrative. Later this month, Banksy's Subject to Availability (2009), a "vandalised" version of an oil painting by the 19th-century artist Albert Bierstadt, goes up for sale in Christie's 20th century sale, estimated at £3m to £5m. Meanwhile, NFTs of artists destroying works continue to attract headlines since the livestreaming of Banksy's Morons (2006) being burnt by the collective BurntBanksy, in March, giving the $95,000 print a $380,000 price tag in the process. More recently, a work by the Spanish-American artist Domingo Zapata was set alight by the entrepreneur Brock Pierce and collector Paolo Zampolli, in a further attempt to sell the resulting NFT. The vandalism of art has traditionally been viewed as a destructive act-ethically questionable, chastised by law and harmful to a work's subsequent monetary value. But these recent examples have demonstrated the art world's ongoing fascination with the act of sabotage itself. So, what impact does such "damage" have on market value?
ISSN:0960-6556