Sold for £18.6mn! Banksy iconoclastic artwork goes for 20x its pre-shredded price

A SUMMARY OF THE MOST EXCITING ART NEWS FROM AROUND THE GLOBE

While we focus on Indian art, we can’t obviously function in a vacuum. It’s a small world and everything is connected, especially on the web. So, let’s train our spotlight across the world map to see what’s going on — from art trends to socio-political issues to everything that affects the great aesthetic global consciousness. Or, let’s just travel the world and have some fun!

It’s a record £16mn for Banksy’s ‘Love is in the Bin’

Banksy’s Love is in the Bin — or what remained of it after the anonymous artist\’s live destruction of his piece Girl with Balloon (which sold for £1m in 2018) — went under the hammer at Sotheby\’s in London on Thursday. And, it sold for a whopping £16m — vastly over its £4-6m guide price. Including a buyer\’s premium, the purchaser paid £18.5m in total. The sale saw nine bidders battle for around 10 minutes, and beats the previous record of £16.8m set for Banksy in just March this year. Back in 2018, moments after the hammer fell at the auction, alarms sounded and the canvas dropped through a hidden shredder built into the bottom. BBC brings you the details.

Newest curated NFT platform: ‘Sotheby’s Metaverse’

In other news at auction houses, like its rival Christie\’s, Sotheby\’s has become increasingly involved in the NFT art market this year. And now, the art auction house has launched its own non-fungible (NFT) platform. Called \’Sotheby’s Metaverse,\’ it will include curated NFTs from the Sotheby’s team and allows individuals to purchase NFTs using ETH, BTC, USDC or fiat currencies. The first sales to take place on Sotheby’s Metaverse comes from Natively Digital 1.2: The Collectors, a collection of 53 NFTs from 19 collectors such as Pranksy, j1mmy.eth, and Paris Hilton. The Block tells you more.

Famous Air India art collection probably won’t go to Tata

Back home on national territory, although Air India has recently gone back to its original owner, the Tatas, its art collection built by JRD Tata is still staying with the government. A legend in art circles, ‘The Maharaja collection’ has over 4,000 works, including paintings by legendary artists such as Jatin Das, Anjolie Ela Menon, M F Husain and V S Gaitonde. Ministry of Culture sources have apparently said they will try to expedite the process of formal handover and consequent display of the collection in New Delhi. Further, officials said the latest deal entails only the airline — Air India’s non-core assets, such as land, building and other belongings, remain with the government. The Indian Express hashes it out.

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