Hasta La Ideas

When you’re a street artist, we’d imagine that you’d absolutely have to always keep the thought in the back of your head that what you’re making will forever be temporary. We’d guess that it’s been a little while since the most celebrated of the street artists, Banksy, hasn’t had to go through that in a while, now that finding his work often leads property owners and city officials to immediately see flashing dollar signs. But sometimes stuff just happens, as we learned by way of Art Info that a volunteer graffiti clean-up crew in the British city of Glastonbury accidentally painted over a two-year old Banksy piece. Of course, the lucky owner of the wall the celebrity artist decided to hit wasn’t feeling so lucky in the end, as he woke up to find his easy money now gone (or at least that’s what he’s telling his insurance company):

Julian Chatt, who owns the wall, claimed he had struck a deal to sell the piece for around £5,000 before disaster struck.

He said: “I’d spoken to the town council in the past and asked them not to paint over the artwork. Sure enough, the last few times the council have been out they didn’t paint it over.

No one had asked him for permission to paint the wall, he said, adding that his insurance company is examining whether the painting is covered. He said he had also reported it to police.

City councils in trouble for removing graffiti? The police called? Strange times, these.