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Showing posts with label Banksy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Banksy. Show all posts

June 11, 2020

Banksy's "the Sorrowful Girl", stolen from Bataclan Concert Hall has been recovered.


When insult, (the theft of a Banksy artwork) was added to injury, (the tragic deaths at Bataclan Concert Hall) no one would have guessed the artwork would be recovered in the countryside of far off Abruzzo in Italy. 

Banksy's memorial artwork, "the Sorrowful Girl", was painted on one of the Paris theatre's emergency exit doors, and soulfully depicts an unusually dressed woman with a slightly bowed head. The single colored artwork had been placed at the concert hall by the British street artist in remembrance of the lives lost during the 13 November 2015 terrorist attack during an Eagles of Death Metal concert.  On that night, 90 concert-goers died.  Others, luckier perhaps, but equally scarred, fled terrified and frightened, some through the very door the artwork had once been painted on. 

On 26 January 2019 last year, Banksy's commemorative artwork was stolen, hacked off from the door using an angle grinder power tool before being loaded onto a truckbed.

The artwork was recovered in Italy by the Alba Adriatica (Teramo) unit of the Italian Carabinieri who carried out a search warrant as part of a joint Italian-French judicial cooperation investigation involving the L'Aquila District Prosecutor, the Italian Carabinieri and French police.

On hand for the press conference held today at the Palace of Justice in L'Aquila, Italy were: Major Christophe Cengig, the liaison officer for organized crime at the French Embassy in Italy; the L'Aquila District Prosecutor Michele Renzo; L'Aquila Public Prosecutor David Mancini;  Lieutenant Colonel Carmelo Grasso, commander of the Carabinieri of the Cultural Heritage Protection Unit of Ancona; Colonel Emanuele Pipola, the provincial commander of the Carabinieri of Teramo, and Lieutenant Colonel Emanuele Mazzotta, commander of the Carabinieri company of Alba Adriatica.


Very little was disclosed during today's tight-lipped public announcement given that the investigation involves a crime that took place in France where an investigation into the theft is ongoing.  No mention was made of who might be involved in the removal of the artwork from France or when and how the Bansky piece ultimately ended up in Abruzzo. 

All that was released was that this operation began in March and that the artwork had been apparently been moved on more than one occasion, before being located in an upstairs storage room of a cottage in the countryside, in the province of Teramo.  At the time the search warrant was executed, the tenants living in the property where the artwork had been stored seem to have been completely unaware of what was being stored inside the closed area where the artwork was found. 

In a moving speech, Public prosecutor Renzo stated:

"Europe is not just a word, it is a common feeling with respect for a complex group of rights that underpin our idea of freedom, which no terrorist act can ever erase. For this reason, I am happy for this operation that gives us back this work that symbolizes mourning for those victims of the terrorist attack in Paris."

No word yet on who, if anyone will be charged in Italy, though the authorities stressed that there does to appear to be any link to terrorism and that the motives for the theft appear to have been purely economic in nature. 

August 14, 2013

Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - ,, No comments

Boarded up Banksy art at La Brea and Beverly in LA to be sold at auction (NYT)

by Catherine Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor

For years, this gas station located on the northwest corner of La Brea and Beverly covered up an artwork believed to have been painted by the street artist Banksy. Now, this work is scheduled to be sold at Julien's Auctions in Beverly Hills in December, Melena Ryzik reports in "Another Banksy Mural to Go from Wall to Auction" for The New York Times.

Here's an ARCA blog post we did in September 2012 on the gas station and its locale -- and you might be able to identify a second piece of artwork at the same gas station that has remained available to the public.

A second piece of street art at La Brea and Beverly 
Here's an ARCA blog post in 2011 that shows photos of the same gas station and an adjoining pink wall which is regularly scrubbed of street art. The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Little Toyko in Los Angeles exhibited on street art and graffiti in the same year.

September 9, 2012

Sunday, September 09, 2012 - ,, No comments

Postcard from LA: Street Art at La Brea-Beverly amongst chic fashions and Hasidic Jews

Street art tucked away in corner of car wash at La Brea and Beverly in Los Angeles.
by Catherine Sezgin, ARCA blog editor-in-chief

Graffiti and street art can be found in the Los Angeles neighborhood around the intersection of La Brea and Beverly Boulevard of expensive beauty salons and clothing boutiques amongst a community of Hasidic Jews.

Yesterday a gas station and car wash displayed a rumored Banksy work that has been covered up for years.  When I took a few photos with my phone camera, a worker told me, "Ten dollars for a photo." I laughed and he didn't push the point.

Another artwork reputedly by Banksy boarded up is proposed for an auction sale according to one consultant.

Boarded up Banksy may be sold at auction


For your fun, here are a few photos of designs visible on September 6, 2012.

"SMILE YOUR BEAUTIFUL" by WhIsBe posted on a utility box in front of a sidewalk portrait.

Art pasted on utility box

Sidewalk portrait