Friday, February 25, 2011
Banksy's Caution Tagged and Removed!
When we saw the earlier pics of Banksy's being defaced, it made our stomach drop. This one makes us sick to our stomach. Click the jump below for more pics and info
We feel as bad about this one as it possibly could be. We were stingy with the location, and thought that by not publicly putting out the location we could help this get documented, saved, and preserved. Unfortunately, it seems everything went wrong and it got tagged, and chopped out to be sold before most people could see it. Fuck.
The piece reportedly got tagged by someone who rolled up, got out of a car, tagged it, ran back to the car and drove away.
And a short while later, some workman showed up and sawed the piece out of the wall to be put up for sale.
This is as bad as it gets. First of all, we hate to see the bullshit tagging like this. It is the worst part of graffiti culture, and a part that we have never understood. It is incredibly smile minded to think that defacing something or ruining something somehow gives any credibility. It only shows you are a hack. You haven't brought anything to the table, the only contribution you have made to the world is by ruining something that was once beautiful. Well, everyone's already forgotten your name, they just remember that some asshole defaced a Banksy. Hope you're proud. We love tagging and love getting up, but shit like this happens too much, and gives graffiti a bad name in general (and most writers would agree).
Secondly, we thought that by protecting the location, we could give it time to get the site protected for more people to see. Unfortunately, instead of preserving it, the owner chopped it out of the wall. And folks won't get to see it after all.
And finally, we feel like real assholes for not posting the location earlier. We have learned a big lesson in the role of this blog, and if we aim to get the information out, we can't cherry pick and while we might be in touch with the pulse of the streets, we can't ultimately control what happens on the streets.
Such a sad story, and we pledge to give the location details on any and all locations from here on out.
Double Fuck~
***Big thanks to Cindy Bolf, Darryl Martinez, Ryan C. Winkleman, and Corey Miller for catching this action as it went down***
