Banksy: Battle to Survive a Broken Heart

ON VIEW AT BROOKFIELD PLACE: April 22 – May 21, 2025

This unique, large-scale work by famed British graffiti artist Banksy will be up for auction through NYC-based auction house Guernsey’s on May 21 in the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place, with a portion of the proceeds supporting the American Heart Association.  

Created in 2013 on the wall of a warehouse in Brooklyn owned by Vassilios Georgiadis, Banksy‘s work, Battle to Survive a Broken Heart, features a red heart-shaped balloon covered in bandages. The 6 x 9-foot, 7,500-pound section of the wall tagged by the artist, which was excised from the warehouse, will be on display to the public in the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place from April 22 until the auction on May 21.

In the fall of 2013, 59-year-old Vassilios Georgiadis offered helpful advice to a passing van driver who turned out to be Banksy. The elusive artist returned in the middle of the night to create the floating Mylar balloon mural on Georgiadis’ warehouse wall.

Shortly after its creation, rival artist “Omar NYC” defaced the piece by spray-painting over the heart and scrawling his own name in front of a live crowd. Countering that – and the only time he has ever been known to re-work his art – Banksy revisited the wall and embellished it further.

With Banksy’s bright red, heart-shaped balloon as the wall’s centerpiece, it was a sad coincidence when, just a few years later, Georgiadis passed away from heart disease. Honoring his memory, his family is generously donating a significant portion of the auction’s proceeds to the American Heart Association. New York City-based auction house Guernsey’s will hold the auction of this artwork live on location in the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place on May 21.

Read The New York Times article about this artwork.

This artwork is free to view and open to the public.

• To support the work of the American Heart Association, visit www.heart.org.
• For further information about the auction held by Guernsey’s, visit www.guernseys.com.

DIRECTIONS to visit Brookfield Place in Lower Manhattan.