2.28.2011

Banksy "stolen" in LA: Cut from building wall "in broad daylight"

photo
Caution, prior to being tagged and then removed, by Rob Wade

Banksy -- in LA in the lead-up to last night's Oscars -- did several wall stencils, including one that was swiped removed on Friday. As photographer Ted Soqui writes, "Art thieves drove up in broad daylight and sawed away the Banksy piece from the wall." Flickr user Ultra Shine Blind, who's been documenting Banksy's recent LA murals, has a series of shots of the piece, Caution Crossing, after it'd been cut from the wall of a building and loaded into a truck. Before it was taken, the piece had been tagged, also in broad daylight.

Banksy's Exit Through the Gift Shop was up for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, but lost out to Inside Job, Charles Ferguson and Audrey Marrs' expose on the global financial crisis.

Update: Ok, maybe not "stolen." The blog MELROSEandFAIRFAX states that, "unfortunately, instead of preserving it, the owner chopped it out of the wall."

Update: Ultra Shine Blind, who shot the photos below, confirms: "The piece wasn't really stolen ... The real story is how people are cutting holes in there walls b/c they thing it's a Banksy."


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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:29 PM

    How does one accidentally a section of the wall?

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  2. Douglas1:08 PM

    I suspect the owners decided to keep it in their living room to protect it, which kind of misses the point.

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  3. Martin Olson11:32 AM

    I wish Banksy would hit up Minneapolis so I could steal the work and sell it on e-bay. When Obey Giant came to town a few years back he hit a boarded window of Franklin Artworks. Tim Anderson (?) from FA came to the opening of Fairey's and complained- he should have removed the wood and sold it to pay for the rent of his art space that had no connection to it's neighborhood.

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