Detroit gallery hides Banksy's graffiti art after threats

BY MARK STRYKER
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Detroit’s most controversial piece of graffiti art is on the move again.

The mural — painted by renowned British street artist Banksy in the derelict Packard Plant in Detroit and later moved to a nonprofit gallery without the artist’s knowledge — has been taken off view after the gallery received threats that it might be defaced or destroyed.

“There was a lot of anxiety with the threats, so our board of directors requested that we move it until it can be displayed safely,” said Carl W. Goines, volunteer executive director and cofounder of 555 Nonprofit Gallery and Studios in southwest Detroit.

Discovered earlier this month in the abandoned squalor of the Packard Plant, the mural’s removal touched off an impassioned debate about the meaning, legality and ownership of graffiti art. The 7-foot-by-8 foot work, a painting of a boy with a can of red paint next to the words “I remember when all this was trees,” is attached to a 1,500-pound cinder-block wall.

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http://www.freep.com/article/20100528/ENT05/100528056/1318/Gallery-hides-Banksys-graffiti-art-after-threats

You would agree that any graffiti is an improvement.