by Mabel Roy
  • 1 minute read
  • July 16, 2020
£7.5M-Worth Banksy Artwork Has Been Removed From The London Underground

About a day after street artist Banksy unveiled his latest creation in the London Underground, which underlined the importance of wearing a mask on public transport amid the COVID-19 outbreak, it was scrubbed off the train by cleaning staff who didn’t understand its significance.

Earlier on Tuesday, Banksy had uploaded a video titled If You Don’t Mask – You Don’t Get on his Instagram page. The video showed the elusive artist wearing protective gear and spray-painting pictures of rats sneezing on the inside of the train, illustrating how not wearing masks can lead to the spread of Coronavirus.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CCn800cFIbe/

The pro-mask message by Banksy includes rats, which is a signature of many of his previous works. One of the images that had been graffitied features a rat holding a bottle of antibacterial hand wash, while another shows a rat using a face mask as a parachute.

The video closes with the words, “I get lockdown” painted the wall of an Underground station, followed by “but I get up again” sprayed on the inside of a train door. It’s not clear how long the work was actually on the train, but some suggest that Banksy painted the mural in a public place knowing it would not be there for long.


Cover image credit: @banksy

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