[Banksy/Graffiti/Mural]Banksy’s graffiti paintings have repeatedly set records in the auction house. If you get a large graffiti for free one day, most people may think it is a gift from heaven. Earlier, a British couple discovered that Banksy left huge seagull graffiti on the outer wall of their house, but said that this experience was like a nightmare, and decided to spend a lot of money to remove the graffiti?
The incident originated in August 2021, when Garry Coutts and Gokean Coutts learned from the tenants that scaffolding had been erected on the exterior wall of their property in eastern England. At first they thought it was the local council repairing the chimney, but later found out The famous graffiti artist Banksy left a seagull graffiti on their exterior wall, which is one of the artist’s “Great British Spraycation” series.
Banksy’s work of seagull is six meters high and occupies almost the entire wall of the property facing the street. The work quickly became a local hotspot, and many Banksy fans specially came to the scene to queue up to see the authentic work. The local municipal council even stated that they might issue a cultural relic protection order on the graffiti, requiring the owner and his wife to maintain the graffiti, but they need to bear their own expenses every four years. Ten thousand pounds (approximately HK$386,616) related expenses.
The works attracted many criminals. Not only did some people try to scrape off some of them and sell them online, but some also tried to take away the scaffolding or cover the works with white paint to destroy them. In order to protect the graffiti, the owner had to hire another security guard to guard the works in the early morning. He said: “In the beginning, this was obviously a good thing, but as things developed, it has put a lot of pressure on us. I don’t know if Banksy realizes that (leaving graffiti on the facade) will have unintended consequences for the owners. If we could turn back time, we would.”
After two years of trouble, the Coutts decided to start removing the exterior wall murals in April this year, and completely removed the graffiti in recent days. Since the exterior wall weighs 50,000 pounds, 12 layers of resin, fiberglass, and 5 tons of steel bars need to be added to the exterior wall. The engineering is cumbersome and the removal cost is 200,000 pounds (approximately HK$1,932,903). The person concerned hoped to sell the work afterwards to compensate for the related expenses, and said that he would make up the imitation at the original site, but many local residents lamented this, and some even claimed that Banksy’s painting was “stolen from the town by them.”
I don’t know how readers will deal with a masterpiece from heaven?
