Banksy's ‘Broken Heart' painting defaced on a Brooklyn wall is up for
sale
[May 02, 2025]
By PHILIP MARCELO
NEW YORK (AP) — When the enigmatic street artist Banksy spray-painted a
heart-shaped balloon covered with a Band-Aid on the wall of a Brooklyn
warehouse, the nondescript brick building was instantly transformed into
an art destination and the canvas of an unlikely graffiti battle.
Almost as soon as Banksy revealed the piece back in 2013, an anonymous
tagger brazenly walked up and spray painted the words “Omar NYC” in red
beside the balloon, to the dismay of onlookers.
Days later, someone stenciled “is a little girl” in white and pink
beside Omar’s tag, followed by a seemingly sarcastic phrase in black: “I
remember MY first tag.” Some think it was Banksy himself who secretly
returned to the scene to add the rejoinder.
The apparent graffiti battle didn’t end there. Another tagger also
attempted to leave his mark but was stymied by security guards. Today
the phrase “SHAN” is still visible in light purple paint.
Maria Georgiadis, whose family owned the now-demolished warehouse and
ultimately removed the section of wall to preserve the artwork, says the
graffiti pastiche is quintessentially New York.
“It looks like a war going on,” she said recently. “They’re literally
going at it on the wall.”
Artwork up for auction
The preserved wall, dubbed “Battle to Survive a Broken Heart,” will be
going up for sale May 21 at Guernsey’s, the New York auction house.
Georgiadis, a Brooklyn schoolteacher, says the sale is bittersweet. Her
father, Vassilios Georgiadis, ran his roofing and asbestos abatement
company from the warehouse adorned with the balloon.
He died four years ago at age 67 from a heart attack, which is why some
of the proceeds from the sale will be donated to the American Heart
Association.
“It’s just very significant to us because he loved it and he was just so
full of love,” Maria Georgiadis said on a recent visit to the art
warehouse where the piece was stored for more than a decade. “It’s like
the bandage heart. We all have love, but we’ve all went through things
and we just put a little Band-Aid over and just keep on moving, right?
That’s how I take it.”
The nearly 4-ton, 6-foot-tall (3.6-metric ton, 1.8-meter-tall) wall
section is one of a number of guerrilla works the famously secretive
British artist made during a New York residency in 2013.
At the time, Banksy heralded the work by posting on his website photos
and an audio track recorded partly in a squeaky, helium-induced voice.
Banksy may not have painted response to tagger
Guernsey auction house President Arlan Ettinger said it is impossible to
know for certain because Banksy works clandestinely. But he said the
neat stenciling and wording “strongly suggest that this was a gentle way
for Banksy to put the other artist in his place.”
Ulrich Blanché, an art history lecturer at Heidelberg University in
Germany, called the piece a “very well executed” stencil notable partly
because of Banksy's decision to place it in Brooklyn’s port area of Red
Hook.
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A slab of wall art, The "Battle to Survive a Broken Heart,' created
by the artist Banksy, sits on display inside the Brookfield Place
atrium, Tuesday, April 29, 2025, in New York. The nearly four-ton
piece will be auctioned off on May 21. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
“This part of NYC was not easy to reach at that time,” he said by email.
“Banksy wanted people to go to places in NYC they never have seen and
love them as well.”
But Blanche questioned whether the additional stenciled text was truly
the work of Banksy, saying the word choice and design don’t appear to
comport with the artist’s style at the time.
“To call a graffiti guy a ‘girl’ is not something Banksy would do in
2013. This is misogynic and immature in a sexist way,” he wrote. “Three
different fonts that do not match and three colors — why should he do
that? Too unnecessarily elaborated without reasons. So I think this was
added by someone else.”
Blanché also said he is ambivalent about the pending sale, noting Banksy
usually doesn't authorize his street pieces for sale. At the same time,
he understands the burden placed on property owners to protect and
maintain them.
“Banksy’s works should be preserved, but for the community they were
made for,” he said. “They should not be turned into goods. They are made
and thought for a specific location. Not portable. Not sellable.”
Spokespersons for Banksy didn't respond to an email seeking comment.
Difficult to determine price
Maria Georgiadis’ brother, Anastasios, said his father had also hoped to
keep the piece in Red Hook after having cut it out of the wall and
framed in thick steel for safekeeping.
The elder Georgiadis, he said, envisioned the work as the centerpiece of
a retail and housing development on the property, a dream he didn't
realize. The property has since been sold off by the family.
Ettinger said it is difficult to say what the piece might fetch. There
is little precedent for a sale of a Banksy piece of this size, he said.
In 2018, a canvas that was part of Banksy's “Girl With Balloon” series
sold in London for 1.04 million pounds ($1.4 million), only to famously
self-destruct in front of a stunned auction crowd.
Maria Georgiadis said she hopes whoever buys the ”Broken Heart” finds
the same beauty and meaning her father drew from the piece.
When Banksy painted it, the family business had been recovering from
destructive floods caused by Hurricane Sandy the prior year. Georgiadis
recalls her father had no idea who Banksy was but was moved by the
simple image.
“My dad had it in his head that Banksy knew what we went through,” she
said. “He goes, ‘Can you believe it Maria? It’s a heart.’”
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