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A Banksy Wall Tagged By Rival Graffiti Artists Is Heading to Auction

Banksy‘s altered mural “Battle to Survive a Broken Heart“ heads to auction this May, with part of the proceeds benefiting the American Heart Association.
ByCaLea Johnson|
Someone will get to claim this piece of art on May 21.
Someone will get to claim this piece of art on May 21. | Guernsey’s

Banksy made a name for himself in the early 1990s when he started spray-painting stencils around Bristol, England. Today he’s one of the most prominent graffiti artists in the world. Though he remains anonymous, his often politically-charged works draw huge crowds and sometimes sell for millions. Banksy’s latest piece headed to auction, “Battle to Survive a Broken Heart,” is unique in that it captures an apparent rivalry with other street artists.  

According to Guernsey’s, the auction house selling the piece, the famous graffiti artist painted a bandage-covered red balloon on a warehouse building in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, in 2013. Soon after, a different tagger spray-painted over the balloon and wrote “Omar NYC” in red ink beside it on camera and in front of annoyed onlookers.

Under the signature, someone—some say Banksy in protest—stenciled “is a jealous little” in white ink, and added “girl” in larger, pink letters. The retaliation went further when the same person stenciled the seemingly snarky comeback “I REMEMBER MY FIRST TAG” in black. At some point a third graffiti artist entered the picture, using purple paint to write “SHAN” in large letters before they were stopped by security. If Banksy embellished the painting after it was defaced, this would be the only known instance where the British artist changed his work.

“Battle to Survive a Broken Heart” is a 6-foot-by-9-foot, 7500-pound chunk of the wall where the drama went down. After sitting in storage for years, it will go up for auction on May 21, 2025. Guernsey’s will hold the auction in person at the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place in New York and online at LiveAuctioneers and Invaluable. The piece’s starting price is listed at $500,000 on both websites, and it’s estimated to fetch between $1 million and $3 million.  

Vassilios Georgiadis, the owner of the original warehouse building, passed away due to heart disease four years ago. Once they’ve sold “Battle to Survive a Broken Heart,” his family plans to donate part of the proceeds to the American Heart Association in his honor.

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