Another Banksy painted over
Another piece by street artist Banksy, known for his anti-war and anti-capitalist graffiti art was “inadvertently” painted over when a Melbourne city council ordered cleaners to spiffy up Hosier Lane. A stencil of a parachuting rat with aviator glasses, said to be Banksy’s last remaining street stencil, was painted over with grey paint.
The area is particularly known and visited by tourists and locals to see the graffiti adorning the district. Of course, residents of Hosier Lane are distressed over the death of a Banksy creation and tourists are disappointed to find that the prized artwork is not there anymore. The Melbourne Council took the flak for the mistake, CEO Kathy Alexander said: The removal of the rat stencil was not an error on the cleaner’s behalf as they were under instruction to clean all unapproved areas and were not made aware of the significance of the artwork.
This isn’t the first time a Banksy original ran into trouble in Melbourne. In 2008, vandals poured paint over a stencil of a diver in a helmet and trenchcoat. Notable Banksy works are stencils on the Israeli West Bank barrier, and even a naked man hanging onto a windowsill.
So the world has lost another Banksy original… because it was hiding in between other graffiti?