The Urge to Destroy, The Urge To Create

(Washington Post October 6, 2018) Anonymous British graffiti artist Banksy has pulled off another stunt that seized the attention of the art world — this time at the expense of his own work.

On Friday, a Banksy painting titled “Girl with Red Balloon” was being auctioned at Sotheby’s in London. The spray-painted and acrylic piece depicted a little girl extending her arm out for a heart-shaped balloon, floating far beyond reach.

            The bidding climbed to $1.4 million, an amount that tied the artist’s own auction record from 2008. Finally, a hammer pounded to signify the end of the auction.

Right then, the painting’s canvas began scrolling downward, seeming to pass through its elaborate gilded frame — and reappearing below in neat, vertical strips. Later, Sotheby’s would explain that a shredder was hidden inside the frame.

The crowd began murmuring as they realized what was happening: The painting was “self-destructing” before their very eyes.

            "It appears we just got Banksy-ed,” Sotheby’s senior director Alex Branczik said in a statement that described the incident as “the first time in auction history that a work of art automatically shredded itself after coming under the hammer.” 

Banksy on Saturday posted a video to Instagram that showed footage of a shredding mechanism being built into a frame for, presumably, “Girl with Red Balloon.”

“A few years ago I secretly built a shredder into a painting,” he stated in the video text, “in case it was ever put up for auction ...”

The video then jumped to clips of Friday’s auction at Sotheby’s, indicating that Banksy — or someone who works with him — was there when it happened.

“The urge to destroy is also a creative urge,” Banksy captioned the Instagram post.

            My favorite part of this story is that according to the Evening Standard, the partially shredded artwork has doubled in value. The painting’s iconic place in art history may see the price only increase further in the coming months.

            Although the above quote is attributed to a 19^th century Russian anarchist and atheist, I think Judaism agrees that the urge to destroy can be a creative urge. This finds expression in the Halachot of the 39 Melachot (categories of forbidden activity on Shabbat). One of the requirements for an activity to be forbidden is that it must be “constructive”. For instance, carrying a 50 pound sack of potatoes around your house may work up a sweat and be tiring, but it is not a Melacha because you have not transformed or acted constructively towards the potatoes. Two categories of Melacha seem to break this rule: Korei’ah, tearing and Soteir, demolishing. Our tradition explains that these activities are only Biblically prohibited if they are done with the intent to subsequently mend or rebuild. Here we see in Halacha examples of destruction being a creative urge.

            We also find this idea in Parshat Noach. We read how God brings a flood to destroy the world. Yet He also saves Noach and his family. The lesson is clear: God destroys the world in order to create a world that is less corrupt. This destruction was a type of creative urge. (This may also help explain the Midrash that says that God created and destroyed many worlds before the creation of our world. The lesson there too might be that destruction can at times be a creative expression.)

            There is a lesson here for us as well. Sometimes we need to alter our plans. Sometimes we need to adjust our perspective, our goals, or our expectations. And sometimes we need to destroy them; start from scratch and rethink the entire matter. As scary as this may be, we should remember at those moments that the urge to destroy can also be a creative urge, and a harbinger of great things ahead.