The elusive artist Banksy displayed his latest work on a London street corner, and it was taken less than an hour after he confirmed its installation on Friday.
A red stop sign with three military drones on it was taken in the middle of the day by a
Banksy stop sign artwork taken from southeast London street soon after it appears
NZ Herald
3 mins to read
Subscribe to listen
Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber? Sign in here
Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
A man removing a Banksy artwork that shows what looks like three drones on a traffic stop sign, in southeast London. Photo / AP
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
He was among the many onlookers who watched as a man in a red-and-black jacket climbed up on a bike next to the post the sign was bolted to and began hitting it with his hands.
“We said, ‘What are you doing?’ but no one really knew what to do, we sort of just watched it happen,” Alex said. “We were all a bit bemused; there was some honking of car horns.”
The man then left and returned a few minutes later with bolt cutters to finish the job. Another man stabilised the Lime rental bike he stood on and he then removed it and ran away.
Removed. https://t.co/B3OKHSzbq6 pic.twitter.com/CUnjNILh1S
— Lukas Karlsson (@lukwam) December 22, 2023
Banksy’s thought-provoking street art is often seen as making a political statement. His Instagram followers widely interpreted his latest work as calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.
Hailing from Bristol in the UK, Banksy is known for his instantly recognisable street art — a style often considered to be criminal damage, though his work is worth millions to a property owner if it appears on an outside wall.
His painting Girl with Balloon infamously self-destructed, partially shredding itself, moments after it was auctioned in 2018 for $2 million. In 2021, the half-ruined work, renamed Love in the Bin, sold once again — for $36 million.
The artist has previously visited Palestine, leaving murals on the 8m-high barrier wall separating the West Bank from Israel in 2005, and going to Gaza in 2015 to create a series of murals. He also released a tourism video about Gaza — “Make this the year you discover a new destination,” the caption sarcastically reads. “Welcome to Gaza.”
The video was interspersed with facts about the territory and shows some of the art he did in Gaza.
At the time Banksy’s publicist released a statement to the New York Times:
“I don’t want to take sides. But when you see entire suburban neighbourhoods reduced to rubble with no hope of a future — what you’re really looking at is a vast outdoor recruitment centre for terrorists. And we should probably address this for all our sakes.”
– with AP
