A NEW Banksy artwork has been removed from a south London street less than an hour after it was confirmed to be the original installation.
The artist confirmed the artwork – a stop sign covered with three aircraft resembling military drones – as his in a social media post shortly after noon on Friday.
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People remove Banksy artworkCredit: PA
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The artwork shows three drones on a road sign Credits: PA
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The art was discovered at the junction of Southampton Way and Commercial Way in PeckhamCredit: PA
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Shocked bystanders watched as he was pulled out Credit: PA
Two men were seen removing the sign at the junction of Southampton Way and Commercial Way in Peckham at around 12.30pm.
It is understood that Banksy was not behind the removal.
A man who witnessed the removal said he “watched in awe” as the man “slammed him with his hands”.
The witness, who wanted to be known only as Alex, rode a Lima bike to the artwork, a stop sign covered with three aircraft said to resemble military drones. The bicycle was then used by the man to stand on while he removed the art.
Alex, 26, said: “I opened Instagram and saw it had been posted four minutes before and I was about to go on my lunch break. There were about two people there when I arrived. We were all admiring it and taking pictures.
“This guy came up and grabbed it, we watched in awe as he hit it. He put the Lime bike under the sign, stood on the Lime bike and tried to hit the sign, he hit it with his hands, but there was nowhere to go.
“At one point he fell off Lima’s bike. He disappeared and left and about two minutes later he reappeared with the bolt cutters and was kind of trying and trying and trying while everyone was watching.
“We said ‘what are you doing?’ but no one really knew what to do, we just watched it happen.We were all a bit confused, there was some honking of car horns.
“He tore it off and ran across the road and ran. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t seem to care that much about the art itself. There was someone else there, but I don’t know if they were together.
“I went there thinking people wanted it, I wanted to see it before something happened to him. Before it was filmed, someone else said ‘shall we take him?'”
It came after the council was criticized for destroying another Banksy mural after part of it was replaced by a wheelie bin.
The artwork on the side of a building in Margate, Kent, originally showed a bruised 1950s housewife in an apron and washing gloves pushing a man into a freezer.
But just 24 hours after the artwork was first spotted, council workers removed the freezer – leaving behind an empty space.
The freezer was later replaced by a municipal waste container.
And in 2018, Banksy destroyed one of his works – when he caused his most famous painting to disintegrate just seconds after it was sold for £1 million.
Buyers at London auction house Sotheby’s were stunned when his piece Girl with a Balloon began to self-destruct.
It sold for a staggering £1,042,000, but was left hanging in its webbing when it went through a device that was fitted inside the frame.
Banksy has installed some other pieces this year, including Valentine’s Day Mascara, a 3.8-ton mural that appeared on the side of a house in Margate, Kent, on Valentine’s Day.
The mural depicted a 1950s housewife with a swollen eye and a missing tooth, wearing an apron and yellow washing gloves and throwing a man into a freezer chest.
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In September, it was installed in the foyer of The Art of Banksy exhibition on Regent Street in central London, where it can be viewed for free.
The exhibition features works including Girl With Balloon, Flower Thrower and Rude Copper, and also focuses on Banksy’s Dismaland, The Walled Off Hotel in Bethlehem and recent works acknowledging the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The exhibition also opened at the Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA) in a limited run and showcased 25 years of Banksy’s graffiti stencils.
The artist often refers to contemporary issues, and in 2020 he included messages about the coronavirus pandemic in his work.
Transport for London (TfL) has removed spray paint from London Underground carriages due to what it called their “strict anti-graffiti policy”.
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Two men removed the sign of Merit: PA
Categories: Optical Illusion
Source: HIS Education