An interesting turn of events have unfolded over the last month in regards to Banksy’s ‘IKEA Punk’ piece in Croydon, London. Since our initial coverage back in September, it was defaced by vandals in November during a public vote.
This month, two loyal fans of the secretive guerilla artist have decided to spend thousands of pounds out of their own pocket to restore the defaced piece, hiring a team of builders to cut out the three-ton section of reinforced concrete wall, lifting it by crane on to a lorry and took it to a secret location where it will be cleaned up.
Nick Loizou, a 30-year-old graphic designer and builder, and Bradley Ridge, a 31-year-old restaurateur, hope to sell the piece once it has been restored to its former glory.
Mr Ridge said: ‘To begin with we thought we would nick the mural,’ he joked. ‘We thought we could cut the Banksy off the wall, flop it on to a mattress and take it away.
‘That wasn’t possible so we thought better of it, and decided to try to save it.’ With the backing of the owners of the wall, concrete company Hanson Premix, Mr Ridge and Mr Loizou drew up their plans to rescue it.
The operation was complicated when the team of labourers, carpenters and bricklayers discovered the wall was made of reinforced concrete, not brick as they had assumed.
They spent nine days preparing the wall before it was taken away in a pre-dawn operation on Thursday. During the nine days someone slept by it every night for protection.
According to Mr Ridge, Banksy himself has given his blessing to the project through an intermediary, saying: ‘Well done and good luck.’
The future of the mural, once restored, is uncertain. ‘We have a couple of options,’ said Mr Loizou.
‘We really want to sell it to a gallery or a museum so the maximum number of people can enjoy it. But if we can’t do that, there is always eBay.’
It’s actually not the first time Banksy’s artworks have been completely excavated from walls, around the same time last year, a friend of ours here at SLAMXHYPE, Peter Dean Rickards chopped down a slab of concrete wall with a rare banksy piece in Jamaica (one of the only stencil piece which Banksy has officially signed off). Take a look at the original post here (there is an interesting video there which I highly recommend).
Info: Dailymail UK
