Photo by Jason Matthews

We’re not entirely sure how to feel about this.

Internationally famous graffiti artist, Banksy was in Detroit recently and he did what graffiti artists do.  He graffitied.  One of his pieces ended up on a small fragment of a wall in the now derelict Packard plant.  The image of a small boy with a paint can remembering “when all this was trees” is irony layered on irony with a thick coating of melancholy.  It’s simultaneously hopeless and hopeful, acknowledging that change isn’t synonymous with death.

… or rather, it was.

After being tipped off on May 8, the folks at 555 Gallery assembled a recovery team and over a two-day period, they removed the piece and transported it to their gallery.  They claim the effort was about preservation and in their defense, any building in this state of decay is likely to be destroyed at any moment.  On the other hand, the critics point out that that may well have been Banksy’s intention.

Either way, a public art piece by an important, internationally recognized painter has been removed from the public eye (without permission) and no one quite knows what to do about it.

Local artist Matt Eaton (brother of another internationally renown graffiti artist, Tristan Eaton) summed it up this way on his Facebook posting about the incident:

“… and THAT is why you can’t have nice things, Detroit.”

(via The Detroit Free Press)

UPDATE: Tomorrow, Matt Eaton will be on our local NPR station, WDET, with Tom Thewes (of ©POP Gallery) discussing the merits of… well, let’s be honest, he’ll be verbally smacking the crap out of the folks at 555 Gallery.