I assume they won’t actually have to pay? I’d guess whatever contract their is with the seller also requires that the art is delivered safely to the purchaser.

I wonder what the message is here, or if there is a message beyond the publicity. I guess something about the art having no inherent value...

It's now a part of art history, it would be a foolish move on the part of the buyer to not accept it. Banksy has reaffirmed why he's maybe the only contemporary visual artist today who counts as a household name. Although I guess we cuold debate whether he's first and foremost a visual artist, or a performance artist. The audacity of his stunts and trickery far outweigh the merits of his clever visual puns.

Walked past one of his works on the upper west side of manhattan. I wouldn’t have known it was his except for the plaque put up next to the plastic barrier installed to protect it.

Kind of crazy that the art is likely worth as much as the entire building it’s on. Although, this is Manhattan so who knows.

His works in the Gaza strip are definitely worth more than the entire buildings.

If that’s the case, I guess Banksy will be laughing even harder...

“But is the work destroyed? Or is it transformed? Even Branczik isn’t sure. “You could argue that the work is now more valuable,” Branczik said. “It’s certainly the first piece to be spontaneously shredded as an auction ends.”

I doubt a burned, sorry, transformed, version of the Mona Lisa would be more worth than before.

What if Leonardo had very publicly transformed it before he died?

An urn with the ashes of the painting would not be that much worth or admired now.

Sports rather than art, but this comment is vaguely reminiscent of cricket.

They'll pay and be happy to do so.

Banksy's art is valuable exactly because his art pushes the boundary. It wasn't just destroyed for no reason. His graffiti art is meant to be public, and he has made no secret he thinks private art collection is bullshit.

But the shredding functionality was part of the work of art all along. A feature, not a bug!

I read on Vice they are already speculating that this may have increased its value.

The art isn't in the artifact.

A lot of it is, or nobody would have been buying to begin with.

The art isn't just in the artifact per se, it's in the causal history of it (and surrounding it), and the messages that can be interpreted from those histories. I wish we actually had two separate words for this - one for "art as in, I look at it and it looks moving", another for "art as in, the whole causal context of this work is interesting". Works are usually a mix of the two. Banksy's work was good in both categories, and just gained a lot in the latter. Compare to e.g. Mona Lisa, which is crap in the first category (both absolutely and relative to much better works that can be produced by anyone with a smartphone camera), and its whole value stems from the latter category - the history and context of the work.

Antiques Roadshow calls it "provenance." Some works are worth more because of who has owned them.