In an effort to save a Banksy mural on the wall of The Grosvenor Hotel in Torquay, England, the hotel has boarded up the famous graffiti during renovations.
Banksy's 8-foot painting of a boy drawing a robot appeared on The Grosvenor in 2010, and last year, vandals doused it with paint thinner. In order to keep the work—which has become a tourist attraction—safe, the hotel owners have placed a board over Banksy's graffiti.
The Grosvenor's general manager, Rebecca Snowball, told The Daily Mail, "The decorating team has preserved the Banksy. It has been boarded over and they have painted over the cover. It has been kept safely behind. It had already been damaged when somebody threw acid over it a while ago. But we are redecorating the whole building and they were unsure about the best thing to do about the Banksy."
Not only does the Banksy mural bring in visitors, but it is valued at $773,650 (£500,000), making it a target, not only to vandals but also to companies wishing to cash in on Banksy's art. In June Banksy's Slave Labour was pulled off a wall in London and sold at auction for $1.1 million by a concierge company named Sincura Group despite outcries from the local community. Sincura Group again infuriated Londoners when they sold off Banksy's No Ball Games in July for $116,0475 (£750,000). With the infamous graffiti artist's work valued so high, it will be interesting to see if Banky's mural remains on The Grosvenor at all—even if it is boarded up.
[via Daily Mail]
