[MSN] Banksy sculpture is snatched from the garden of 'kidnapper'

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Banksy sculpture is snatched from the garden of 'kidnapper'
Last updated at 15:15pm on 5th June 2007
 

When one of Banksy's art works was "kidnapped" from the streets of London,
it seemed as if the graffiti artist had met his match. 

Photo:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=
460066&in_page_id=1770

Swept under the carpet ... Red faces as another Banksy mural bites the dust 

Spirited away: The Drinker has disappeared again
The piece was The Drinker - a recreation of Rodin's statue The Thinker, with
a traffic cone on its head - and an "arto-politico terrorist" calling
himself AK47 demanded a £5,000 ransom. 

Banksy offered £2 and the deal was refused. Three years on, and thieves have
got into AK47's garden in Hackney and taken the statue, leaving the plinth
and cone. 

AK47 today accused Banksy, or "his people", of being behind the theft. "The
statue was there on Friday when I left for Holland," he said. 

"If Banksy has got it back, I will treat it as a joke. But if it's someone
taking it for its financial value I'd be annoyed." 

The bronze, said by AK47 to be worth about £300,000, first appeared in 2004.
It was put on a concrete plinth with Banksy planning to move it from venue
to venue. 

Then in April that year it disappeared from Shaftesbury Avenue. When Banksy
refused to pay a ransom the piece languished in a warehouse until AK47
decided that cost too much. 

AK47 claimed the piece was legally his, as it had essentially been dumped on
the streets of London without permission. "I've reported the theft to the
police," he said. 

He claimed that he had been in talks with auctioneers Bonhams over the sale
of the statue, and Banksy had shown interest in buying it back. 

A spokeswoman for Banksy said: "It is nothing to do with him and he does not
want to comment." 

Meanwhile, a mural by Banksy is to be preserved when the Bristol office
block it has adorned for five years is knocked down. 


The Bristol Banksy wall which will be preserved

Mild Mild West, which shows a giant teddy bear hurling a petrol bomb at
police, will be put in a glass atrium for new offices. 

It will be welcome good news for Banksy who had 9 of his limited edition
prints stolen from a Brighton gallery last month. 

In two raids at Artrepublic in Bond Street, Brighton, a total of 10 items
valued at about £10,000 - nine of them by Banksy - were stolen. 

Sussex Police said it appeared the gallery had been "purposely targeted for
the Banksy works".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/

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