Everyone would like a Banksy at home. Who knows how many would be willing to pay the artist a stellar amount to have one of his site-specific works, perhaps on the facade of their own house. Instead Garry and Gokean Coutts, on the other hand, had to spend 200 thousand pounds, around 235 thousand euros, to have a mural created by the most famous anonymous street artist in the world removed on a building they own, located in Lowestoft, in the United Kingdom. Reason? The maintenance of him had become too expensive a «grind».
Story of Banksy, the ghost artist on the side of the least
Emanuela Minucci
The work dates back to August 2021 and represents a giant seagull greedily interested in the contents of a garbage dumpster (a real dumpster). The work is part of the “Great British Spraycation” series spread across various cities in eastern England, including the towns of Great Yarmouth, Oulton Broad, Gorleston-on-Sea, Cromer, King’s Lynn and, precisely, Lowestoft, the easternmost town of the whole of the UK and renowned for its beaches.
Banksy: the mural that appeared in Margate for Valentine’s Day has already been dismantled
Emanuela Minucci
At first, the tenants of the building believed it was maintenance work, then, once the scaffolding had been dismantled, they discovered that behind that curtain a work was hidden in the end, it was not so welcome. As always happens in these cases, Banksy’s work immediately went viral on social media, attracting hundreds of visitors and inflating the value of the property. But, together, also a lot of problems, especially economic ones. And so the condominium assembly decided: the work of art will be dismantled. We need to understand if and how it will be saved, before being – rightly – condemned by the court of social media.