Getty Image / TOLGA AKMEN/AFP
Two men have been charged after Banksy’s iconic ‘Girl with Balloon‘ piece was stolen from the Grove Gallery on New Cavendish Street in London.
Security camera footage has been shared far and wide showing one of the alleged burglars smashing in the glass front door, walking in through a hole in the broken glass, taking Banksy‘s iconic ‘Girl with Balloon’ off the wall, and walking back out the front door with it.
Banksy artwork ‘Girl with balloon’ STOLEN from London gallery pic.twitter.com/6Luis2gLwn
— The Sun (@TheSun) September 13, 2024
The piece, which is valued at over $350,000 according to court documents obtained by BBC News, has since been recovered and is currently back in the gallery sitting unceremoniously inside of a police ‘evidence’ bag. And that’s great! They got it back. All’s well that ends well, right? Well, this is Banksy we’re talking about…
He has spent his entire career cooking up tomfoolery. Remember when ‘Girl with Balloon’ was shredded? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Banksy has produced more than one of these. He’s painted them. There has been wall graffiti. So while it’s logical to question the validity of the recovered ‘Girl with Balloon’ because images of the piece that was stolen and returned show zero evidence of being shredded at auction five years ago in front of a horrified audience, it is legit. In fact, there are 150 ‘Girl With Balloon’ pieces that have been signed by Banksy himself out there and an additional 600 unsigned that are also legitimate.
I was living/working in Manhattan during 2013 when Banksy did the pop-ups around the city for an entire month. There was one right by our BroBible office in SoHo. People went nuts for that month-long art spree. All over the world people still go nuts anytime Banksy pops up with new art.
Given the secretive nature of his entire career and proclivity toward the unexpected, I’m just having trouble believing that what we’re seeing here is exactly as it appears. And despite spending my adult life working/writing on the Internet I’m still pretty far from being a suspect.
Could they have been after Banksy’s ‘Girl with Balloon’ art to sell? Sure. Would it have been worth a lot of money? Absolutley not, everyone would have known it was stolen. It would have been worth as much as a re-print bought off Etsy. We know this because someone tried to do something similar on Antiques Roadshow a few years back and the art was worthless.
Should we be on the lookout for Banksy stunts in the near future after this ‘burglary’? 100%, yes. Absolutely.