The work will not have remained in place for long. London police announced on Sunday, December 24, that they had arrested two people following the disappearance of a work by Banksy, taken away on Friday in front of stunned witnesses, barely after being claimed by the enigmatic British artist.
Made up of three aircraft, which appear to be combat drones, attached to a traffic stop sign, the work appeared on Friday morning at a crossroads in Peckham, a district located in the south-east of London. The artist quickly published a photo of his work on his Instagram account, through which he usually authenticates his creations.
But, less than an hour later, witnesses filmed a man, perched on a bicycle, dismantling the panel using cutting pliers, with the help of another man. The video and images, which made the rounds on social networks, then show him running off with the work.
After arresting a man in his twenties on Saturday, London’s Metropolitan Police said on Sunday that they had taken a forty-year-old into custody on suspicion of “theft and damage”. The first arrested was released under judicial supervision pending further investigation procedures expected in mid-March.
Theft reported by Southwark Council
On Friday, the London police initially declared that they had not received any reports about the disappearance of the work. But Southwark City Council, responsible in particular for signage in this area, declared in the evening that it wished to recover the sign and had reported its theft to the police. The latter invited “anyone who may have information about the incident or the whereabouts of the sign” to contact them.
Several works by Banksy, which sometimes fetch millions of euros at auction, have already been stolen in the past, including a door from the Parisian Bataclan hall which paid tribute to the victims of the attacks of November 13, 2015.
Others have been compromised, like a mural denouncing domestic violence, representing a housewife with a look from the 1950s or 1960s, disfigured by a black eye and a broken tooth, while the a man’s legs protrude from an old, very real, horizontal freezer placed against the wall. The freezer was quickly removed for safety reasons, confusing the understanding of the work, before being reinstalled.
The ephemeral nature of the works is sometimes desired by Banksy himself. In 2018, The Girl with the Balloon partially self-destructed in the middle of an auction, causing astonishment. Through this performance, the artist intended to denounce the “commodification” of art. But the price of the self-destructed work, renamed Love is in the Trash, was almost multiplied by 20 during a sale three years later, exceeding 20 million euros.