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Banksy artwork Mobile Lovers to go on public display in Bristol art gallery Banksy artwork Mobile Lovers to go on public display in Bristol art gallery
(about 5 hours later)
A Banksy artwork removed from a wall by a youth club has been handed to police and will go on public display. A Banksy artwork removed from a wall by members of a struggling Bristol youth club has been handed to the city council and will go on public display.
Mobile Lovers, showing a couple embracing while checking their phones, was painted on a piece of wood screwed on to a wall in Clement Street, Bristol. Mobile Lovers, which shows two people embracing while checking their smartphones, was attached to a plank screwed on a wall understood to be owned by Bristol council.
Shortly after it was spotted it was removed from the wall, believed to be owned by Bristol city council, by workers at the nearby Broad Plain & Riverside youth project. It was removed hours after it was discovered by workers at the nearby Broad Plain & Riverside Youth Project.
The youth club, run by Dennis Stinchcombe, 58, installed the piece in a corridor and invited members of the public to come and view it – with donations optional. He said on Wednesday that he had received anonymous death threats about the removal. With an eye to generating revenue, club members installed the piece in a corridor and invited members of the public to view it in exchange for an optional donation.
Stinchcombe had planned to sell Mobile Lovers to raise funds for the youth club, which is attended by 1,000 youngsters every month and requires £120,000 to survive. But when Dennis Stinchcombe, who runs the club, revealed plans to sell the piece to cover a £120,000 funding deficit, he received death threats from art fans.
But after speaking to officers from Avon and Somerset police, the youth club decided to hand the piece to the city council. Stinchcombe handed the piece over to police, who returned it to the council on Wednesday evening. Avon and Somerset police were called in and the club has agreed to hand over the artwork to the city council with an arrangement that any money generated by the expected display at the city art gallery over the Easter weekend goes to the youth club, which is attended by a 1,000 people.
George Ferguson, the city's mayor, said the piece would go on display at the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. Bristol mayor George Ferguson said: "I'm delighted that Dennis, who is a good man, has made a tough judgment call and has turned over the artwork to us, via the police.
"I'm delighted that Dennis, who is a good man, has made a tough judgment call and has turned over the artwork to us," Ferguson said. "No one's the bad guy here, we simply need to buy time to establish where ownership lies, what Banksy's intentions might be, if we were to get some signals, and how best we can move forward."
"No one's the bad guy here. We simply need to buy time to establish where ownership lies, what Banksy's intentions might be, if we were to get some signals, and how best we can move forward. Richard Jones, 55 editor at Tangent books who published Banksy's Home Sweet Home' collection of early Bristol artworks, said the artist "likes to be in control of absolutely everything he does", and the incident may have been engineered by Banksy.
"I have established with our legal and museum services that we can move ahead on this basis so that, hopefully, it will be on show for people to enjoy at the City Museum and Art Gallery over the Easter weekend. "My initial impression was Banksy's put it there by the youth club in a way that is easy to take down.. and the [youth club] boys were tipped off about it. So the piece was effectively a gift from which the boys club would benefit," Jones said.
"It certainly would have been a cultural crime if this artwork had been lost to the city. He pointed out that the Bristol graffiti scene started in the 1980s with a youth club. "The whole Bristol scene goes back to...the Barton Hill youth club. There's a resonance there as well.
"I'm also asking if Banksy could provide a limited-edition print which could be sold in aid of the club. "However, having spoken to some people who are very much in the know, Banksy put the piece where he put it because it was the right place for it to be, with the street light and the overhanging foliage.
"In the meantime we shall be working with a local publisher to produce postcards and prints for sale in aid of Broad Plain boys' club. "There's been no official statement from Banksy's management...but I know somebody who works very closely with him and had worked on that piece who said 'it is an outrage, this was intended to be on the street'.
"And I have asked for a collection box at the museum for them. This hopefully will represent a win-win for everyone." Jones believed it was right the artwork was not staying with the youth club. "That would have meant the club would have sold it to the highest bidder. And you would have ended up with someone in a Rolls-Royce driving down from London and it going to a private collection."
Stinchcombe spotted Mobile Lovers on Monday but did not realise its authenticity until Tuesday. Chris Chalkley from Bristol arts and urban renewal collective the People's Republic of Stokes Croft said there was a recurrent problem of monetisation with Banksy's work.
He took the decision to remove the piece on Tuesday afternoon after guarding it and becoming worried about vandalism and it being stolen. "Anything he does people are hacking off bits of wall and selling them. That really points up the absurdity of the art market, which is all about brand."
The piece was installed in a corridor in the youth project, where dozens of visitors paid donations from a few coins to £5 notes to view it on Wednesday. A screen print of Mobile Lovers has been installed in the artwork's original home, a boarded-up doorway overlooking the busy A4032 road into Bristol's centre.
Paul Messenger, 52, from Bristol, brought his 90-year-old mother, Dorothy Messenger, to view Mobile Lovers.
They said they did not object to paying to see the piece.
"I don't mind at all. It can make money for a good cause," he said.
The removal of the artwork was also welcomed by Stephen Williams, the MP for Bristol West and minister for communities and local government.
"It's great to see Banksy active in his home city once again," he said. "I'm sure he would want the Riverside youth club to benefit from his latest work.
"Money is always tight for youth clubs so I hope Dennis and his team raise lots of money if the picture goes to auction."
A screenprint of Mobile Lovers has been installed in the artwork's original home, a boarded-up doorway overlooking the busy A4032 road into Bristol's centre.
The discovery of Mobile Lovers comes days after a piece depicting three 1950s-style agents listening in on conversations in a telephone box appeared on a house in Cheltenham.