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The painting was originally auctioned as "Girl
with Balloon", the image of a young girl holding a heart-shaped
red balloon that has become the artist's most popular since it
was first sprayed on to London's Waterloo Bridge in 2002.
But the moment the auctioneer's gavel fell, a hidden mechanism
inside the frame shredded half the painting, which had just been
sold for over a million pounds.
Museum director Henning Schaper said they had been anxious to
avoid being the victim of another of the "subversive, clever"
artist's practical jokes and seeing the rest of the painting
shred itself while it was in their charge.
"We opened up the frame and found the shredder machinery, the
battery holders, the wires and satisfied ourselves that the
batteries had been removed and the wires cut," he said after
curators wearing white gloves had carefully hung the work in its
new place.
The owner, an anonymous European art collector, agreed to go
through with the purchase of the painting, which the artist
officially renamed after its shredding, and has now loaned it to
the Frieder Burda Museum in Baden-Baden for a month.
The museum will not charge the public to see the painting.
Schaper said that since Banksy was an advocate of the
democratization of art and a street artist, it would be wrong to
make the public pay to see it.
"We wanted to engage with his philosophy by hanging the art work
where people don't have to pay to get in and can experience
Banksy's art and join us in a critical debate on developments on
the art market," Schaper said.
The painting will be on display in the south-western city until
March 3 before it is moved to the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart,
which will also not charge to view it.
(Reporting by Reuters TV, writing by Thomas Escritt, editing by
Ed Osmond)
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