Banksy Comes & Goes In Melbourne

Three days ago it was announced that Melbourne City workers accidentally destroyed a small Banksy artwork during routine maintenance.  Located in Hosier Lane, the small stencil of a rat wearing a parachute was painted over as part of an attempt to remove all ‘unapproved’ street art in the area.  CEO from the City Of Melbourne, Kathy Alexander commented;

There was no legal street art permit in place for the rat stencil believed to have been left by Banksy in Hosier Lane. There are currently five approved street art sites in Hosier Lane.

A few days after the embarrassing ‘cleanup’, ten more parachuting rats have appeared in the lane.  Although the new rats – now painted in a range of colours, are believed to be fakes, photos of the pieces being created have revealed a masked male artist.

In 2008, vandals destroyed Banksy’s Melbourne-based ‘Diving Bell’ artwork.  One un-named Melbourne street art expert believes the initial act of vandalism was spurred on by the City Council preserving the piece after realising its commercial value;

It was because the bureaucrats placed an arbitrary value on that piece when we have a whole city full of this art. The bureaucrats decided this is worth protecting because it’s worth lots of money.

It’s a great example of the law of unintended consequences, when people who aren’t really understanding of the culture get involved.

I’m pretty much sure a street artist destroyed that piece . . . If the City of Melbourne hadn’t tried to protect that work, we’d probably still have it.

Banksy

Image Credit

[via TheAge]