Girl with Balloon (also, Balloon Girl or Girl and Balloon) is a series of stencil murals around London by the graffiti artist Banksy, started in 2002. They depict a young girl with her hand extended toward a red heart-shaped balloon carried away by the wind. The locations for this work include street murals in Shoreditch and the South bank in London on the Waterloo Bridge[1] and other murals were around London, though none remain there.
Banksy has several times used variants of this design to support social campaigns: in 2005 about the West Bank barrier, in 2014 about the Syrian refugee crisis, and also about the 2017 UK election. A 2017 Samsung poll ranked Girl with Balloon as the United Kingdom's number one favourite artwork.
In 2018, a framed copy of the work was shredded after being sold at auction by way of a mechanical device Banksy had hidden inside the frame. Banksy confirmed that he was responsible for the shredding and gave the altered piece a new name, Love is in the Bin. Sotheby's said it was "the first work in history ever created during a live auction."
History
This variation was repainted in Bethlehem in 2006.
The locations for this work include Waterloo Bridge as well as other sites around London, though none still remain.[2] A 2004 version of the mural was at an east London shop in Shoreditch, sold in 2007 for £37,200 at Sotheby's,[3] and was removed by the Sincura Group in 2014 and sold for £500,000 on 19 September 2015.[4]
Several sets of limited edition prints of the work were produced, which became valuable over time. An initial set of 25 signed prints was produced in 2003,[5][6] while a set of 150 signed prints and a set of 600 unsigned prints were produced in 2004/2005.[7][8] In addition to the signed and unsigned edition, a series of 88 artist proofs consisting of blue, pink, gold and purple hearts (22 of each colour) were also released.[9] In November 2015, one of the signed set of 150 was auctioned for £56,250, more than twice its estimated value.[10]
The artwork motif was also released in 2005 as a series of hand-sprayed paintings comprising multiple versions including a signed diptych edition of 25 with each panel measuring 30 x 30cm.[11]
In August 2005, Banksy included it as part of a series of murals on the West Bank barrier, a variation called Balloon Debate of the girl floating above the wall while holding onto a bunch of balloons.[12][13][14]
A 2009 version was sprayed directly onto the cardboard backing of an Ikea frame.[15][16]
In March 2014, the third anniversary of the Syria conflict, Banksy reworked the painting to depict a Syrian refugee and added the hashtag #WithSyria. On 13 March, the image was projected on the Eiffel Tower and Nelson's Column. An animated video was released, featuring animation based on Banksy's work, narration by Idris Elba, and music by Elbow.[17] In the following weeks, the singer Justin Bieber got a tattoo based on the original art and posted a picture of it on Instagram before deleting it. Banksy posted this picture on his Facebook page with the comment "Controversial".[18]
In July 2017, a Samsung poll of 2,000 people from the United Kingdom asked participants to rank twenty pieces of British art. The poll's results listed Balloon Girl as the people's number one favourite artwork.[19]
A print of Balloon Girl – Colour AP (Purple) was sold in an auction in September 2020 for £791,250, making it the highest bidding price for a Banksy print and the most expensive print sold in an online auction.[20]
United Kingdom general election controversy
In early June 2017 before the United Kingdom general election, Banksy introduced a variant of Girl with Balloon with the balloon coloured with the Union Jack design.[21] Banksy initially offered to send a free print of his art to registered voters in certain constituencies who could offer photographic proof they had voted against the Tories. The offer included a disclaimer: "This print is a souvenir piece of campaign material, it is in no way meant to influence the choices of the electorate."[22] Banksy cancelled this offer on 6 June 2017 after the Electoral Commission warned him it could violate election bribery laws and invalidate the election's results in those constituencies.[23]
On 5 October 2018, a 2006 framed copy of the artwork was auctioned at Sotheby's selling for £1,042,000 – a record high for the artist.[24] Moments after the closing bid, the artwork began to self-destruct by means of a hidden mechanical paper shredder that Banksy had built into the frame bottom.[25] Only the lower half shredded. Banksy released an image of the shredding on Instagram with the words "Going, going gone..".[26] Sotheby's said "We have not experienced this situation in the past where a painting spontaneously shredded",[24] leading some market watchers to speculate the remains of the painting will be worth even more.[27] Banksy released a video of the shredding and how the shredder was installed into the frame in case the picture ever went up for auction.[28]
The woman who won the bidding at the auction decided to go through with the purchase. The partially shredded work has been given a new title, Love Is in the Bin, and was authenticated by Banksy's authentication body Pest Control. Sotheby's released a statement that called it "the first artwork in history to have been created live during an auction."[29][30]Love is in the Bin was itself sold at Sotheby's for £18 million in October 2021.[31]
2024 theft
A print of Girl with Balloon, worth an estimated £270,000, was stolen from the Grove Gallery in New Cavendish Street, London, in September 2024. Two men were charged with the theft and the artwork was later recovered.[32][33]
Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist, and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stenciling technique. His works of political and social commentary have appeared on streets, walls, and bridges throughout the world. His work grew out of the Bristol underground scene, which involved collaborations between artists and musicians. Banksy says that he was inspired by 3D, a graffiti artist and founding member of the musical group Massive Attack.
Sotheby's is a British-founded multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, and maintains a significant presence in the UK.
Art destruction is the decay or material destruction of original works of art. This can happen willfully, accidentally, or through natural processes.
Slave Labour is a mural that was painted by a British graffiti artist, Banksy, on the side wall of a Poundland store in Wood Green, London in May 2012. The artwork is 48 inches (122 cm) high by 60 inches (152 cm) wide, and depicts an urchin child at a sewing machine assembling a bunting of Union Jack patches. The work was a protest against the use of sweatshops to manufacture Diamond Jubilee and London Olympics memorabilia in 2012.
Spy Booth was a 2014 artwork by Banksy in Cheltenham, England. The piece has been seen as a critique of the global surveillance disclosures of 2013.
Art Buff is a graffiti artwork by Banksy which was created in Folkestone in 2014, Banksy announcing it as "part of the Folkestone triennial. Kind of". The work depicts a woman wearing headphones and staring at a plinth, upon which rests a patch of painted-out graffiti. The name of the piece is a play on words, "buff" being a slang term for the painting over of graffiti.
The Son of a Migrant from Syria is a 2015 mural by graffiti artist Banksy. The mural was located in the Calais jungle, a nickname for the encampment near Calais, France, where migrants lived as they attempted to enter the United Kingdom. The artwork depicts the late Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs—the son of a Syrian migrant to the United States—as a traveling migrant.
Pulp Fiction is a type of work by stencil graffiti artist Banksy. Instances of it depict the characters played by Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta in the 1994 film Pulp Fiction, with their guns replaced by bananas. A stencil graffiti work existed on a wall near the Old Street tube station in the City of London from 2002 to 2007. Prints of the image had been sold for more than £1,000 on the original site. A print of the Pulp Fiction stencil was sold for £10,600 in 2012. On 24 November 2020 a signed print has fetched £125,000 at Tate Ward Auctions' "By Collectors for Collectors" event.
Bombing Middle England is a painting by graffiti artist Banksy. It is made of acrylic and spray paint on canvas, and depicts pensioners bowling with bombs in a manner reminiscent of Cinders McLeod's 1999 drawing Anarchic Granny.
Bomb Hugger is a 2003 painting by graffiti artist Banksy. In 2007, it sold for £31,200 at Sotheby's.
The Drinker is a statue by graffiti artist Banksy, not to be confused with the stencil of the same name, a graffiti artwork of a rat drinking a cocktail, on a wall at North Beach, Lowestoft, England.
The year 2018 in art involves various significant events.
Love is in the Bin is a 2018 art intervention by Banksy at Sotheby's London. According to Sotheby's, it is "the first artwork in history to have been created live during an auction." His 2006 painting of Girl with Balloon unexpectedly self-destructed immediately after it was sold at auction. The damaged painting was later renamed Love is in the Bin. It has been on permanent loan to the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart since March 2019. In October 2021, it sold at auction for £18,582,000, a record for the artist.
The year 2020 in art involved various significant events.
Show Me the Monet is a 2005 oil on canvas painting by graffiti artist Banksy. The work is an appropriation of Claude Monet’s Water Lilies series. Banksy has appropriated Monet’s paintings to now depict a traffic cone and two shopping carts polluting and submerging into Monet's pond at Giverny. The work is believed to be a commentary on the negative impacts of capitalism and consumerism within society. Show Me the Monet exists within Banksy’s Crude Oil series. The work was sold in October 2020 by Sotheby’s. The work was sold for £7.5 million.
Flying Balloon Girl, also known as Balloon Debate, is a 2005 stencil mural in the West Bank by the graffiti artist Banksy, depicting a young girl holding a bunch of seven balloons floating above the 8 meter-high wall built around the Palestinian enclave near the Qalandia checkpoint.
The Flower Thrower, Flower Bomber, Rage, or Love is in the Air is a 2003 stencil mural in Beit Sahour in the West Bank by the graffiti artist Banksy, depicting a masked man throwing a bunch of flowers. It is considered one of Banksy's most iconic works; the image has been widely replicated.
Mediterranean Sea View 2017 is a set of three reworked oil paintings designed by Banksy. Each portion of the piece depicts the Mediterranean seascape filled with life vests and flotation devices beached on the shores. Originally displayed in the Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem, it was then donated to ABCD Bethlehem, a nonprofit medical organization. The set of three paintings was then sold in a Sotheby auction in 2020 for £2.2 million, with the proceeds donated to providing medical equipment for the Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation (BASR) hospital. Two anonymous buyers bought the art, and the piece is currently in a private location.
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