london – Police in London said Saturday officers had arrested a man on suspicion of theft and criminal damage after a Banksy artwork was removed from a south London street corner within hours of appearing.
The installation, a traffic stop sign covered with three aircraft resembling military drones, emerged at an intersection in the Peckham neighbourhood on Friday morning.
Less than an hour after Banksy confirmed it was his latest work — posting a photo of it on social media — witnesses filmed it being removed by a man with bolt cutters, with the help of another man.
Images and video posted on social media showed one of them running off with the sign under his arm.
People commenting on Banksy’s Instagram accurately predicted it wouldn’t be there long after the artist posted a photo of it. Some of his work has sold for tens of millions of dollars.
I went there thinking that people want that, I wanted to see it before something happened to it, a man who only wanted to be known as Alex told the Press Association.
He was among the many onlookers who watched in awe as a man in a red and black jacket climbed up on a bike next to the post where the sign was bolted to and began hitting it with his hands.
We said, ‘What are you doing?’ but no one really knew what to do, we sort of just watched it happen, Alex said. “We were all a bit bemused; there was some honking of car horns.”
A person removes a piece of art work by Banksy, which shows what looks like three drones on a traffic stop sign, which was unveiled at the intersection of Southampton Way and Commercial Way in Peckham, south east London, Friday Dec. 22.//AP
The man then left and returned a few minutes later with bolt cutters to finish the job. Another man stabilized the Lime rental bike he stood on and he then removed it and ran away.
Banksy’s thought-provoking street art is often seen as making a political statement. His Instagram followers widely interpreted his latest work as calling for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.
by Agence France Presse and Associated Press
