Banksy Work Stolen from Outside the Pompidou Centre in Paris
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BANKSY’S work was ripped from wall outside Paris’s Pompidou Centre, “The Pompidou, which houses Europe’s biggest collection of contemporary art but does not own the Banksy work, said it had filed a police complaint for destruction of property.”
#Banksy pic.twitter.com/o7YBbfgi7B
— Centre Pompidou (@CentrePompidou) September 3, 2019
According to France24, “A stencilled work by the elusive British street artist Banksy has been stolen from outside the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the modern art museum announced Tuesday.”
The image, which appeared in June 2018 on the back of a sign for the museum’s car park, features a masked rat Banksy’s avatar, symbolising the downtrodden brandishing a utility knife, the instrument he uses to cut out his stencils.
The Pompidou Centre said it suspected the thieves of using a saw to cut the sign, which had been fitted with a plexiglass cover to prevent it being pilfered.
It said the museum’s security guards had already caught thieves trying to snatch the work a year ago.
The Pompidou, which houses Europe’s biggest collection of contemporary art but does not own the Banksy work, said it had filed a police complaint for destruction of property.