There’s big street art news in NYC this week.

Banksy is back in town.

His newest piece is located at the iconic mural locale, the corner of Bowery and Houston. The street was buzzing with people and photographers, even a Channel 4 news truck. I was expecting that.

 

Banksy is the biggest name in street art world wide. He had a “residency” in NYC in 2013 and the city went nuts over it. 

 What I was NOT expecting was to see a painter on site, covering up red tags that had been scrawled all over the mural.

WHO TAGS A BANKSY!? What hour of the night did the tagger have to arrive to complete this vandalism? Were they chased away with pitchforks by a group of art lovers leaving an East Village bar at closing time?

Also, can you imagine being the painter doing this job? “It was my job to paint on top of a Banksy once, nbd.”

How disrespectful, especially with the somber subject of this art!

The piece is a protest of the imprisonment of Turkish journalist and artist, Zehra Dogan, who last year was sentenced to THREE YEARS in prison for nothing more than PAINTING A PICTURE.

 

I’d never heard of this story before Banksy in NYC put the spot light on it in protest. I know I’m not alone in that and I’m grateful for the schooling. Banksy always has a clear critical voice in his work, it’s pretty amazing to see it so laser focused.

Rumors of other Banksy works are flying around since Thursday! Keep a close watch on @Banksy on Instagram to see if this is actually the start of a full blown second residency.