Removed from their original locations

• Cave art hoax with accompanying exhibit label, hung on a wall in the British Museum, removed after two or three days and subsequently accessioned; in 2005.^[1]
• Two works jetwashed away and a third work, of a boy holding a stereo and a teddy bear, the subject of legal action opposing its ablation by Hackney Council in order “to keep streets clean”, in Dalston, London; in 2009.^[2]
• Vulture with fuel pump head on side of a container at Dungeness beach, Kent stolen in early September 2010.^[3]
• Rat, stolen from an electricity meter box outside the home of a well-known underwear designer in Melbourne, claimed to be by Banksy; the authenticity of this work was questioned, with some calling it a fake; in 2010.^[4]
• Mickey Mouse-inspired “Livin’ the Dream”, removed from Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles and destroyed; in 2011.^[5]
• Mural entitled “Caution”, detached from a wall in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles; in 2011.^[6]
• Parachuting Rat in Melbourne, Australia was accidentally destroyed in May 2012 by builders installing new plumbing.^[7]
• “Slave Labour“, a 2012 mural depicting a child making union flag bunting and regarded as a critical social commentary on the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, prised from the wall of a Poundland shop in Wood Green, Haringey, North London in ‘mysterious circumstances’ on 13 February 2013. An attempt to sell it in the USA 10 days later, at the Fine Arts Auction Miami art house on 23 February, was halted at the last minute after Haringey residents began a campaign for its return.^[8]
• “No Ball Games”, a 2009 mural depicting two children playing catch with a sign saying “No Ball Games”, was removed from a wall in Tottenham, Haringey, North London in July 2013. It is planned to be restored and then sold in spring 2014. The Sincura Group, the company that had also placed the “Slave Labour” mural up for sale, stated that the mural had “not been appreciated in situ”. Local residents and councilors were disappointed by its removal.^[9]
• In April 2014, “Mobile Lovers” in Bristol (painted onto plyboard) was removed by crowbar, and is currently residing in Broad Plains Boys Club. There is no evidence of legitimate ownership, and the “leader” of the group plans to sell the piece to help gather funding.
• A mural depicting a soldier with the face of a Lego figure was detached from its original location at Schleifmühlgasse, Vienna, Austria. ^[10]

Concealed or defaced

• In March 2007 one of Banksy’s early pieces, a 25 ft-long artwork featuring a collection of blue shapes with the artist’s trademark tag, on the side of garages in Albion Road, Easton, Bristol, was mistakenly painted over by graffiti-removal contractors Nordic. They had been asked by Bristol City Council to tackle graffiti adjacent to the Banksy work, but wrongly targeted the piece itself. Within days someone sprayed the words “Wot no Banksy?” over the contractors’ plain paintwork.^[11]
• In April 2007 Banksy’s famous 2002 piece depicting John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson‘s Pulp Fiction characters pointing bananas instead of guns, on a wall near Old Street tube station in London, was painted over by London Transport workmen despite having an estimated value of more than £300,000 at the time. Asked to comment on the mural’s destruction, a Transport for London spokesman said “Our graffiti removal teams are staffed by professional cleaners not professional art critics.“^[12]
• In April 2007 a four-year-old wall mural 25 ft long in Cato Street, Easton, Bristol, marketed for sale with its attached house (at 21 Milvart Street) thrown in for free via Red Propeller gallery and was subsequently defaced with red paint. Celebrities had previously expressed interest in buying the work, and the gallery owner contacted Banksy for permission to restore the work. Banksy however declined the offer, stating that overwriting and defacement was an inevitable reality of street art.^[13]
• In November 2007 a mural of a policeman stopping and searching a young girl in Glastonbury, created in connection with the Glastonbury Festival, was whitewashed over.^[14]
• In 2008 “The Little Diver” or “Diving Bell”, previously protected with a perspex sheet by Melbourne City Council in Australia, incensing many street artists, was covered with silver paint poured behind the sheet and later tagged with the slogan “Banksy woz ere”. The image was almost completely obliterated.^[15][16]
  

  One nation under CCTV, 2008 mural^[17] removed (painted over) in 2009.

• In April 2009 “One Nation Under CCTV”, an April 2008 mural, was removed (painted over) after London’s Westminster City Council had stated in October 2008 that it would remove any graffiti, regardless of the reputation of its creator, and specifically stated that Banksy “has no more right to paint graffiti than a child.” Robert Davis, chairman of the council planning committee told The Times newspaper: “If we condone this then we might as well say that any kid with a spray can is producing art.”^[17]
• On 22 June 2009 a piece usually described as “Naked man hanging from a window” on the side of Brook Sexual Health Clinic^[18] in Park Street, Bristol, and voted for retention by 93% of the public in a 2006 council poll, spattered with blue paint in an overnight paint bomb attack.^[19]
• One of Banksy’s earliest, best known and most prominent works, Mild Mild West, featuring a teddy bear throwing a Molotov cocktail containing a bunch of flowers at police, located on the side of a building in Cheltenham Road, Bristol, was twice defaced with paint during 2009. It was cleaned up both times, but was damaged in the process; the paint used to attack it is still visible. ^[20]
• In September 2009 a mural of the British Royal Family, featured on the cover of a single by Blur, was accidentally painted over by workmen employed by Hackney Council, London.^[21]
• Parachuting Rat, one of the last surviving example of Banksy’s Melbourne street art, accidentally painted over by council contractors in March 2010,^[22][23] and finally destroyed by building work in May 2012.^[24]
• In February 2011 a mural behind Westwood Village Urban Outfitters in Westwood Village, Los Angeles, depicting a child holding a machine gun loaded with coloured crayons, was defaced with black paint^[25] just days before the 83rd Academy Awards for which his documentary film Exit Through The Gift Shop had been nominated.
• In May 2011 a Banksy piece drawn in October 2010 around an extractor fan on the Grosvenor Hotel in Torquay was destroyed. It depicted a child drawing a robot. Within a week of its appearance the owners announced plans to cover it with protective perspex amid newspaper speculation that it had increased the value of the property by £150,000.^[18] Vandals smashed the perspex screen on 31 May 2011 to attack the mural with paint stripper, removing the child.^[26]
• On 6 July 2010, “Gorilla with Pink Face Mask” in Fishponds Road, Eastville, Bristol, was painted over by new owners of the building^[27] – by sheer coincidence on the same day that Bristol Zoo Gardens celebrated its 175th anniversary with “Wow! Gorillas“, an event placing decorated life-size gorillas around the city for 10 weeks.^[28]
• In October 2011, Banksy’s “Sniper” on Upper Maudlin Street, Bristol was vandalised by Graffiti artists that support King Robbo spraying Team Robbo with black spray paint.^[29]
• In 2011 a Banksy work in Boston’s Chinatown was graffitied and partially painted over.
• On 31 December 2013 “Praying Boy”, just off of Main Street in Park City, Utah was graffitied and 90% painted over. It was one of four created during the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. He was in Park City promoting his documentary that was featured in the festival “Exit Through The Gift Shop“.^[30]
• In August 2013 the Banksy which was defaced in 2012 depicting a child drawing a robot at the Grosvenor Hotel in Torquay was covered up by the hotel owners as an attempt to stop vandals doing more damage. In 2012 the image of the boy was damaged by vandals throwing acid on it, all that remained was the robot. The robot has now been boarded up and preserved underneath, the hotel owners claim.
• Several other Banksy works in New York City were defaced in October 2013.^[31]
• In October 2014, an “Anti-immigration birds” mural painted over after Clacton-on-Sea‘s local council received a complaint, it was not then known that the work was Banksy’s.^[32]

Demolished

• “The New Pollution” in St Werburghs, Bristol, was knocked down in 2006 by developers in order to build a new block of flats.^[33]
• “No Loitrin” on Essex Street in Cambridge, MA; removed by sandblasting.

Better Out Than In

Most of the works that make up the Better Out Than In series, started in October 2013 in New York City, have been defaced, some just hours after the piece was unveiled.^[34][35]

• At least one defacement was identified as done by a competing artist, OMAR NYC, who spray-painted over Banksy’s red mylar balloon piece in Red Hook.^[36] OMAR NYC also defaced some of Banksy’s work in May 2010.^[37][38]
• On 2 October 2013, on Allen Street in New York City’s Chinatown, one of Banksy’s works that was part of Better Out Than In was painted over, the day after Banksy unveiled the piece.^[39]
• On 7 October 2013, at the intersection of New York City’s Bowery and Delancey streets on the Lower East Side, a stencil by Banksy was tagged over by three vandals.^[40]

As a result of the continued defacement, fans have been rushing to the sites of the installments as soon as they are announced.^[41] A group of men took advantage of this and threatened to deface a stencil painting of a beaver in East New York, charging money for people to take photographs.^[42] The continued defacement has prompted some to take matters into their own hands by guarding the works, others restoring them once defaced.^[43] Property owners have also gone to some measures to protect the art, including hiring 24-hour guards and installing roll down gates that cover the art.^[44]

See also

• Iconoclasm
• Banksy
• Parachuting Rat
• Slave Labour (mural)

References