Banksy: Better Out Than In

The artist Banksy has treated New Yorkers to “a sort of scavenger hunt” these past few weeks.

New York City, various locations

The artist Banksy has treated New Yorkers to “a sort of scavenger hunt” these past few weeks, said The New York Times in an editorial. Each day in October, another work of graffiti by the celebrated but anonymous British street jester has popped up in some odd corner of Manhattan, Brooklyn, or Queens, and the city’s residents have responded with “a characteristic, if not uniformly warm, welcome.” Sure, there have been plenty of admirers tracking his exploits on social media and racing to each site to snap pictures. But the artist’s first New York stencil this month—showing a street urchin holding a spray-paint can—was defaced within hours and painted over in a day. One local graffitist obliterated a Banksy image of a heart-shaped balloon even while a Brooklyn crowd watched and booed. Elsewhere in the same borough, two sidewalk entrepreneurs used a piece of cardboard to cover a fresh Banksy, vowing to charge anyone who came to photograph it. “Welcome to New York, Banksy!”

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