Adult|Welcome|Banksy shakes up the art world|Intermediate

Banksy | Jerry | Reporter | Reporter Lee Cowan

Reporter: A work by the street artist known as Banksy sold at auction the other day for well over $1 million. Then, something happened that was, well — surreal. Here’s Sunday Morning’s Lee Cowan.
Reporter Lee Cowan: Paintings that sell for $1.4 million don’t generally make news at Sotheby’s. But when the gavel fell on the Girl with a Balloon, it became a piece of pop culture. A remote-controlled shredder hidden in the painting’s frame began chewing its way through the canvas, a shock to everyone, including its new unnamed owner.
Banksy: Street art has a short lifespan.
Reporter Lee Cowan: It’s the painter himself taking credit. The elusive Banksy posted an Instagram video that, he says, shows him secretly installing the teeth into the frame. Why? Performance art, says art critic Jerry Saltz.
Jerry: I don’t know if it’s a message, so much as him saying, «Enough, you know, you put your hammer down on my work, I’m putting my hammer down on your work.»
Reporter Lee Cowan: Known as a guerrilla artist, he normally paints where he’s not supposed to, mostly on buildings and walls the world over. He’s done stunts before, like when he placed a life-sized replica of a Guantanamo Bay detainee in the middle of a children’s ride at Disneyland. What he does, even by destroying something, has a certain market value.
Jerry: It’s so voracious and mindless that, my guess is, by now, they’ve all decided that now the work is worth twice as much.
Reporter Lee Cowan: There’s a lot of head-scratching going on at Sotheby’s, which insists it was not in on the prank. But by turning to ribbons one of his most iconic images, Banksy has, at the very least, stayed true to his mission — making a statement while forcing the rest of us to think. Lee Cowan, CBS News, Los Angeles.

Banksy | Jerry | Reporter | Reporter Lee Cowan

Reporter: A work by the street artist known as Banksy sold at auction the other day for well over $1 million. Then, something happened that was, well — surreal. Here’s Sunday Morning’s Lee Cowan.
Reporter Lee Cowan: Paintings that sell for $1.4 million don’t generally make news at Sotheby’s. But when the gavel fell on the Girl with a Balloon, it became a piece of pop culture. A remote-controlled shredder hidden in the painting’s frame began chewing its way through the canvas, a shock to everyone, including its new unnamed owner.
Banksy: Street art has a short lifespan.
Reporter Lee Cowan: It’s the painter himself taking credit. The elusive Banksy posted an Instagram video that, he says, shows him secretly installing the teeth into the frame. Why? Performance art, says art critic Jerry Saltz.
Jerry: I don’t know if it’s a message, so much as him saying, «Enough, you know, you put your hammer down on my work, I’m putting my hammer down on your work.»
Reporter Lee Cowan: Known as a guerrilla artist, he normally paints where he’s not supposed to, mostly on buildings and walls the world over. He’s done stunts before, like when he placed a life-sized replica of a Guantanamo Bay detainee in the middle of a children’s ride at Disneyland. What he does, even by destroying something, has a certain market value.
Jerry: It’s so voracious and mindless that, my guess is, by now, they’ve all decided that now the work is worth twice as much.
Reporter Lee Cowan: There’s a lot of head-scratching going on at Sotheby’s, which insists it was not in on the prank. But by turning to ribbons one of his most iconic images, Banksy has, at the very least, stayed true to his mission — making a statement while forcing the rest of us to think. Lee Cowan, CBS News, Los Angeles.

What he does, even by destroying something, has a certain market value.

It’s so voracious and mindless that, my guess is, by now, they’ve all decided that now the work is worth twice as much.

There’s a lot of head-scratching going on at Sotheby’s which insists, it was not in on the prank.

Banksy has, at the very least, stayed true to his mission — making a statement while forcing the rest of us to think.

1. What do you think Banksy is saying with this work?

2. What is your opinion on it?