Cheltenham residents and Banksy fans are a little pissed off today to learn that, after it was temporarily saved from being removed from the wall, the Spy Booth mural that the artist painted back in April has been defaced with red and silver paint.
According to BBC News, a businessman named Hekmat Kaveh had agreed to purchase the mural, and despite the new graffiti covering the piece, he still thinks there may be a way to save it. "I believe the original paint had some anti-graffiti products in it and also an anti-graffiti product was put over the top of it," said Kaveh. "I am confident that it will come off." Locals have reportedly been trying to remove the graffiti with brushes, but a professional crew will begin working on the mural tomorrow. We're not sure how Kaveh has a claim to the mural, given the complicated battle over its ownership, but at least someone is trying to undo the damage.
Officers are apparently "carrying out inquiries" and trying to find witnesses of the vandalism, but that usually goes nowhere. There is some speculation online by fans that the vandalism could be tied to the death of London graffiti legend King Robbo. Robbo was taken off of life support yesterday after a tragic injury back in 2011. Over the years, he and Banksy had a well-documented feud that included various overt shots taken at one another through their art. Instagram user thewanandonly posted a photo of the tagged mural and made the plausible claim that it could have been "an attack" from Robbo's supporters, but the tag doesn't mention the graffiti artist directly, so it could be a coincidence in timing.
Feud or no, Banksy paid his respects to Robbo on his website, posting a special R.I.P message with Robbo's name and letters that stand for a few of the crews that he was affiliated with: We Rock Hard, World Domination, and PFB.
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UPDATE AUGUST 4, 2014: Q Scaffolding, the company that was originally hired to cover and remove the mural back in June, returned to the site today and boarded up the wall to "prevent it from being the target of vandalism," according to the Gloucestershire Echo. Hekmat Kaveh has reportedly said that he will spend "whatever it takes" to protect and keep the mural in Cheltenham.
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