Cleaners Paint Over Priceless Art

The Melbourne city council learned the hard way that one man's art is another man's crap on a wall that needs to be painted over. The council hired a cleanup crew to get rid of graffiti on Hosier Lane, a street renowned for its street art. While there, the crew got rid of the graffiti, as well as a piece by Banksy, who is regarded as one of the world's greatest street artists. From the article: "The reclusive Banksy ... painted several stencils in Melbourne during a 2003 visit. His satirical and distinctive art is often directed at anti-war, cultural, and anti-capitalist themes. Banksy in 2005 painted nine images on Israel's West Bank barrier, including a ladder going over the wall and an image of children breaking through to a tropical island. In 2008, a London wall bearing one of his stencils was said to have sold on eBay for almost $500,000."

Missing links

[UnifiedTechs]

Here is the missing links:

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/artdesign/story/2010/04/28/melbourne-banksy-street-art.html [www.cbc.ca]

http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct2=us%2F0_0_s_2_0_t&ct3=MAA4AEgCUABqAnVz&usg=AFQjCNErhVxz8bHDdfGDdi5fhOOSg3qxFw&cid=17593745138431&ei=PGfYS7CQH4PC8wSzvZuXAg&rt=STORY&vm=STANDARD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theage.com.au%2Fvictoria%2Fmore-banksy-street-art-in-melbourne-20100428-ts54.html%3Fautostart%3D1 [google.com]

http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&ct2=us%2F0_0_s_3_0_t&ct3=MAA4AEgDUABqAnVz&usg=AFQjCNEsUfIyFhXFwCLurPxuIXL7jMgM5A&cid=17593745138431&ei=PGfYS7CQH4PC8wSzvZuXAg&rt=STORY&vm=STANDARD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fworldnews%2Farticle-1269215%2FMelbourne-Council-orders-Banksy-street-art-painted-mistake.html%3Fito%3Dfeeds-newsxml [google.com]

All over the world

[Evildonald]

This has happened all over London as well. In the 4 years I was there.. i used to know of about 25 pieces.. and when i left they were down to about 7. The small "Rats" have a particular knack of getting painted over.. they are all gone, bar one that I know of, in London.

Re:

[Dthief]

You are completely missing the point.

He doesnt care if his work gets painted over, he's not the one who complains. And the reason he is so secretive and reclusive is so he can continue to go around illegally doing all this.

no one in complaining, they are just laughing at Melbourne for losing $0.5M worth of art because they wanted to get rid of graffiti.

whooooshhh

[jDeepbeep]

Part of the aesthetic of street art is in its transience, among other aspects. And as Dthief said already, Banksy is not the one whining or complaining or demanding the persistence of his work.

Re:

[aliquis]

Reading the fucking article all I can say is that the stuff on the wall in the photo in the article looks much better than that rat anyway. Now if only people could stop tagging everything.

Re:

[Raffaello]

His work is only valuable because of the context in which it is created. If he had always done those stencils on the walls on someone's private property with their permission no one would pay $500K for them.

Sillyness. Art should be art independent of the context in which it is created or displayed. Otherwise it's just a form of performance art, and we know what utter crap that is.

A london wall sold for almost $500000

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet most of that was shipping and handling.

Re:

[Sulphur]

The surviving art is now worth more.

it's != its

[Dagger2]

a street renowned for it's street art

Look, it's bad enough seeing this in the comments constantly, without having it in the summary itself. Is it so difficult to just read your sentence to yourself -- "a street renowned for it is street art" -- and realize that it's not quite right?

Re:

[Rene S. Hollan]

Yes, but most people don't recognize "it's" as a contraction, and think of it as the possessive form.

I used to make that mistake alot. :-)

Re:

[jwest]

Well, since we're being nitpicky: "alot" isn't a word at all.

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/alot.html [wsu.edu]
http://web.uvic.ca/wguide/Pages/UsAlot.html [web.uvic.ca]
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/761667.html [google.com]

Re:

[Yamata no Orochi]

He was being apologetic more than nitpicky. You're just being sort of a dick.

Re:

[Russianspi]

Whoosh!!

Agreed!

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree with you. Its really annoying when people get they're apostrophes wrong.

Re:

[Raffaello]

I totally agree with you. Its really annoying when people get they're apostrophe's wrong.

Fixed that for you.

fixe'd tha't fo'r yo'u

o'h, an'd here's som'e spare's i'n cas'e yo'u ru'n ou't

' ' ' ' ' ' ' '

they fixed it

[vaporland]

check the article heading!

Hrm. Bit of an overstatement, innit?

[d1r3lnd]

FTFA: "In 2008, a London wall bearing one of his stencils was said to have sold on eBay for almost $500,000."

It's not actually priceless, then. Besides, the guy's still alive, and might even have the stencils, still.

just curious

[night_flyer]

did he have permission to paint on these walls?

I doubt Banksy would care

[SirWhoopass]

Isn't Banksy's position that he likes the perishable nature of his art?

Re:

[blair1q]

Dunno. He'd paint under a roof if he didn't mind weathering.

But he's probably not all that enamored of negligence. Unless that's what he's trying to do, give the negligent something to expose themselves over.

Same deal for those who maliciously deface his work or steal it.

So maybe he does "like" it.

And what's lost? Some high-precision doodles, really. But we get a whole slashdot thread out of it.

Well...in the Idle section...

Re:

[Darinbob]

I think the word "priceless" is overblown. If it's priceless, then protect it. If this artist indeed wanted lasting work, he'd ask for permissions first and then choose a location likely to be preserved instead of the side of a building like any old generic graffiti. How is the average person supposed to know the difference between vandalism graffiti and art graffiti anyway? This is just like the museum janitor who threw away the collection of rubbish that was an art exhibit, because it happened to look

Re:

[AP31R0N]

Waxing Toreador for a moment:

i like the idea that this sort of work is ephemeral. You have to be in a certain place at a certain time to experience. His work has to be found because it's not in a museum, gallery or Hot Topic. The disposable nature of his work is appropriate. i like these street artists who make life a bit more surreal and make the mundane (and ugly) funny or even meaningful.

Besides, we have cameras and websites to make him and his work immortal.

Re:

[imakemusic]

His work has to be found because it's not in a museum, gallery or Hot Topic.

Apart from the work that he has placed in museums and galleries of course. But your point still stands.

The painter did his job.

[blair1q]

The person who ordered the graffiti removal did not.

Re:

[aztracker1]

I have to agree here... ART, especially "Street Art" is very subjective. And the line between art and graffiti is incredibly blurred. Beyond this, if the "artist" didn't have permission to paint/draw on those walls/buildings it is graffiti.

Re:

[Profane MuthaFucka]

And if I dump one of my Picassos on your lawn, it's trash.

It's grafitti painted by a guy who could have fucked any number of hot babes in expensive cities around the world, because of his skills with a hardware store spray paint can.

Doesn't matter what you call it! Banksy can get laid like nobody's business.

Re:

[jDeepbeep]

Doesn't matter what you call it! Banksy can get laid like nobody's business.

Not so sure about that. He is married.

Re:

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Are you saying that I shouldn't have let that guy fuck me with the spray paint can? Oh that's embarassing.

Re:

[hallucinogen]

Car analogies are always much appreciated, however I think a better one in this case would be:

This is like someone complaining that someone installed a state of the art sound system to their car and then someone else stole it.

That happens rather often

[bickerdyke]

Most notorious incident over here was the Fat Corner: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fettecke [wikipedia.org] (german) http://translate.google.de/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=de&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fettecke&sl=auto&tl=en [google.de] (babelfish)

Re:

[Qbertino]

The only difference is that a Fettecke has no resemblance of art to the layman and thus its removal by cleaners shouldn't suprise anyone. Where as a streetart painting usually does display concrete results of artistic effort that aren't easy to dublicate. I could make a Fettecke right away, but not a piece of streetart. Not without artistic practice and training that is. Goes to show what is truly art and what not, imho.

Re:

[Dewin]

I don't usually reply to signatures, but since you asked:

[My english is better than most other people's german, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]

As proper nouns, being that they are the names of languages, English and German should be capitalized.

Have a nice day.

Re:

[bluefoxlucid]

[My english is better than most other peoples' german, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]

Also please don't smoke in my office. I enjoy sex way more than you enjoy cigarettes, and you don't see me screwing in your office.

Art?

[jdcope]

I understand the "creative class" needs their validation because they cannot cope with the real world. But graffiti is vandalism. Deal with it. What if one of them takes a shit on your porch and calls it "art?"

Re:

[Colonel Korn]

I understand the "creative class" needs their validation because they cannot cope with the real world. But graffiti is vandalism. Deal with it.
What if one of them takes a shit on your porch and calls it "art?"

If you can sell it for $500k, art or not, I don't think you'd want the cleaning crew to toss it in a dumpster.

Re:

[Darinbob]

If you can sell the dump on your porch for $500k, then you'd be smart to put a plexiglass dome around it and install a security system.

Re:

[Sulphur]

If you can sell the dump on your porch for $500k, then you'd be smart to put a plexiglass dome around it and install a security system.

And pray that you don't get a call like: "This is the Police. Can you come down and identify your stuff?"

Re:

[Nyder]

I understand the "creative class" needs their validation because they cannot cope with the real world. But graffiti is vandalism. Deal with it.
What if one of them takes a shit on your porch and calls it "art?"

Put it in a paper bag, set that bag on fire, ring the door bell.

It's not art, but it sure in hell is funny.

define art?

[Tordre]

So a man with a stencil and spray paint make 'street art" and a stereotype with spray paint makes 'graffiti'?

Re:

[Terrasque]

People willing to pay mucho money for it = art
People willing to pay mucho money to remove it = graffiti

Logical, really.

Newsworthy

[imakemusic]

I can totally see why this is newsworthy. I mean it's not [thisislondon.co.uk] like [bbc.co.uk] it's [bbc.co.uk] happened [thisisbristol.co.uk] before [timesonline.co.uk].

/sarcasm

Banksy media campaign

[GoodNicksAreTaken]

For those that don't follow graffiti news, Banksy articles are appearing in media all over the world right now as his pieces (or imitations of the original, Blek le Rat [bleklerat.free.fr] , and Banksy style) appear as promotion for his movie Exit Through The Gift Shop [imdb.com]

Banksy pieces showing up in San Francisco [go.com]
Banksy in Seattle [capitolhillseattle.com]
Banksy feud with King Robbo [guardian.co.uk]

Re:

[Donkey_Hotey]

The same media still glorifies Tu-Punk.

Re:

[Yvan256]

Sounds like Rule of Acquisition #239 to me.

Banksy's loves war?!

[YourExperiment]

His satirical and distinctive art is often directed at anti-war, cultural, and anti-capitalist themes.

So he's pro-war, anti-culture and pro-capitalsm? I guess I must have somewhat misinterpreted his art.

I don't see the problem

[darth dickinson]

The company was hired to paint over graffiti. They painted over the graffiti.

Now slashdot will be on Conroy's blacklist

[ross.w]

You've discussed graffiti, which is a crime in Australia and material that discusses or promotes it are Refused Classification. Welcome to the blacklist ladies and gentlemen, with more to come.

Re:

[Hurricane78]

ALL HEIL CONROY, OUR BIG BROTHER!
And now for something completely different...
15 minutes of hate!

Re:

[imakemusic]

Yes, because you must be able to sell something for it to be art.

Bristol

[fuzzywig]

Here in Bristol (Banksy's hometown), the public outcry over the council painting over well loved graffiti has got to the point where they will now hold a public vote on which bits to keep, and what will be painted over. Personally I love the different paintings which are on almost every flat surface in parts of town (eg Stokes Croft), they turn what would otherwise be a pretty crappy corner of town, into a big out-door gallery.

Re:

[CoolCalmChris]

Assigning value to a stencil on someone else's property...sure, makes prefect sense. People who do work of this nature (graffiti, street art, whatever) don't get bent out of shape when their illegal spots get painted over.

Let me get this straight...

[unusualHoon]

Would painting over Banksy's work be considered graffiti? Talk about irony.

Look out world, I'm going to be the next world renowned graffiti artist, Skanby! Known for seeking out and painting over world renowned graffiti.