Banksy's Greatest Piece

The greatest of us always shred expectations

Cuddly Kitties

During the winter, the kitties start snuggling in these beds and with each other, like Han and Jayne are snuggled here.

…Time for this week’s story…

Banksy’s Greatest Piece

“Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to begin the bidding on tonight's final piece,” said a well-dressed auctioneer named Duncan. His hair looked wet to the touch and had not moved even a single millimeter all day.

A crowd of well-dressed aristocrats shuffled toward the stage in the spacious marble room. Some cradled their half-filled glasses of champagne daintily betwixt their fingers, others eagerly gripped their numbered paddle boards. After standing around for hours waiting to get a peek, it was finally time. Their eyes were fixed on the red curtain draped over a frame on the wall.

Even before Duncan announced it, everyone knew what it was. Many of them had come for that piece alone. It was no secret that for the first time in over a decade, the legendary street artist, Banksy, had donated a piece for auction. The last time he did so turned out to be the historic shredding of ‘Girl with Balloon.’ That half-shredded piece became its own work of art. The new owner renamed the piece ‘Love is in the Bin’ and then sold it at auction for over eighteen million pounds a few years later.

While it was an act of rebellious performance art, but one the art world loved. They embraced it wholeheartedly, despite Banksy’s best efforts to thumb his nose at high art. He was so bold and his brilliance so unfettered that he could do no wrong. Everyone there was ready to embrace whatever Banksy had planned. Some people were already recording on their phones, standing against the back and side walls.

“This is a painting by the talented and mysterious street artist, Banksy. It was donated under several conditions, one such condition being that all proceeds go to charity. I want to assure everyone that after the avant garde theatrics of his previous auction, we insisted on an inspection to ensure there were no devices hidden in the frame which could damage the art. The inspection found nothing. So, we bring to you today a one-of-a-kind piece not found on any wall, bridge, or sidewalk, a Banksy original titled, ‘Art Thief’.”

Duncan turned toward the covered piece. Two men used sticks with hooks to carefully remove the curtain. The room became awash with fawning admiration from the crowd.

It was a dark painting with a masked man, one hand reaching up as if to grab the corner of the canvas, the other reaching out as if to obscure himself from the viewer, making it all look slightly out of focus. Banksy had encapsulated an art thief caught in the act from the point of view of the painting, turning the thief into the subject of the art itself. Brilliant, amazing, surreal and genius were a few of the words floating around the crowd. Some wondered what paints or brushes he used to achieve the effect. Duncan gave everyone a moment to discuss the brilliance of the painting before clearing his throat to quiet the room.

“The bidding will start at one million pounds,” he said. Someone in the back raised their paddle. “That’s one million. One point one?” Another paddle.

Duncan pointed and raised the price again. It rose by one hundred thousand pounds with each bid, climbing quickly. Within a few minutes, the high bid was over ten million. People’s desire to own what was surely Banksy’s next big performance piece drove them to bid higher and higher.

As the bidding war raged on, one person in the crowd wondered if this piece was actually nothing special at all. That person wondered if Banksy was counting on their anticipation to drive up the price of the painting in order to give the most money possible to the charity of his choosing. That would not, however, be a rebuke of the high art world so much as feeding into it. As it seemed beneath Banksy, that person put it out of their minds. Still, only a single person considered that Banksy could be playing them all for chumps.

The bidding rose higher and higher. Less paddles rose into the air to take the lead until it trickled down to just a few. Then, even less. In the end it came down to four people, then three, then two. The final paddle to rise into the air belonged to a man named Reginald Hartell.

“Going once, going twice…” Duncan dragged out the countdown to give everyone a chance to reconsider before declaring Hartell the winner. “Mr. Hartell is the winner with the final bid of thirty-two million dollars.” Duncan almost hit the gavel but stopped himself, as that was what set off the shredder all those years ago. He looked around the room and held the gavel in the air. “I suppose, it’s the moment of truth.”

Duncan banged the gavel to conclude the bidding. The painting remained intact. After a brief silence, murmurs of both relief and disappointment peppered the crowd. With that settled, Duncan congratulated Zhou, who received an energetic applause from the audience.

A loud shredding of cloth grabbed the room’s attention and put an end to the applause. To everyone’s amazement, the man in the painting had come alive. He ripped the painting away from within, pulling it into itself. Ripped from the sides toward the center in a swirl, a few seconds later, the painting had vanished into itself.

For a moment, the room was frozen in slack-jawed silence. It is said the silence was so deafening that one could hear someone else’s ears pop. Then, the room erupted into uproarious applause. Brilliant, amazing, surreal and genius were a few of the words floating around the crowd. Some wondered what paints or brushes he used to achieve the effect. Only Mr. Hartell was left dumbfounded, pointing in confusion at where his painting was supposed to be.

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