Not nailed up, but adhered to the wall using duct tape. And, yes, another artist ate the banana. Not a problem, though, because buyers of the duct-taped banana (paywall warning) don’t actually get the same fruit used in the show. Instead, they’re expected to provide their own fruit and duct tape.
The now-authenticated mural is assessed to be worth more like 5 million pounds, not “tens (or hundreds) of thousands of bucks”, and I agree with the current owners’ statement that it should be removed and put in a museum if the buyers are not willing to preserve it. It’s not cool to destroy works of art, and in this case there are millions of reasons for you to think twice before doing so.
I thought you might be able to cut out that portion of the wall but it looks like a brick home. Here is a good perspective of the painting:
It’s actually quite controversial whether it’s OK to remove graffiti art from its context even in order to preserve it. I found the documentary Saving Banksy quite interesting on the subject.
Personally, I think that a graffiti artist, by the nature of the work, loses their claim to what happens to it once they’ve made it. You can’t express your disdain for rights of private property by painting on someone else’s building, and then insist that you still retain some rights of your own to the work. So I’m fine with property owners doing whatever they want with the work. (Graffiti is intended to be ephemeral, so even painting it over is OK, but in this particular case would be quite stupid.)
I hope that means you don’t paint over the stuff left by taggers on your house and neighborhood.
It’s not how much money the “art” is worth that gives it value, after all.
For the kind of valuations being thrown around, it would be worth hiring someone with a masonry saw to cut out that portion of the wall. Perhaps a good time to add a window?
(BTW, anyone remember the episode of The Partridge Family in which an eccentric artist offers or is paid to paint the family garage door. His painting ends up being a large mural of a nude woman, which attracts negative attention so the door is given to a museum and a new door purchased in its place. Sort of a much earlier version of the same problem.)
But the importance of the work is its CONTEXT. A piece of art on someone else’s wall is a statement. It derives it’s meaning from the impact of defacing someone else’s property (against their wishes) in the name of the greater good. The same wall in a gallery is just bad art. Deriviative.
Now the owner is forced to confront the importance of the several million pounds of value added to their otherwise humdrum house. Their angst is now part of the art itself.
So yes, I’d paint over it. Like a shot. And now, the “original confirmed Banksy” would take on a different meaning. I have given it a new context.
Sure but it wouldn’t be the first time a Banksy was removed for resale and I’m sure he’s aware of the possibility.
Indeed I do not. Some of it is quite good, not poorly-executed “tags”.
You are right about context in that some (but not all) street art makes integral use of features of the construction itself and cannot simply be separated from the building as if somebody just hung a framed painting there.
Ironically enough, even though you evidently hate graffiti and don’t think this piece is art, you are making the exact same argument as some of the graffiti artists in Saving Banksy.
Yes, but you would be doing it out of spite, not because you were making an artistic statement. The context you were doing it in makes your work invalid as a work of art.
…but I’m making it ironically!
Everybody’s a critic! 
If you’re in favor of painting over the Banksy or other graffiti, you might find the story of 5 Pointz interesting. The Wikipedia article is here. The building owner agreed in the 1990s to let graffiti artists use the building as a canvas. Later, he wanted to redevelop the space on which the building stood. He first had the exterior whitewashed to remove the exterior artwork and then demolished the whole building. The artists sued and in the end were awarded $6.7 million by the courts. (I’m greatly oversimplifying the details of the case.) My point, I think, is that sometimes graffiti is protected over the wishes of the building owner.
I find the whole subject quite hilarious. Banksy mocks the art world and the commercialization of art, so the art world responds by commercializing his art. Banksy in turn responds by making a work of art that self destructs and then becomes even more valuable.
See, if you actually did paint it over as a statement that graffiti art should by its nature be ephemeral, you might actually be creating a new work of art. And maybe the building would become more valuable as a memorial to the destruction of a work of art…
Complain? From everything I’ve read about Banksy, I believe he’d be genuinely thrilled if you did.
Apropos of nothing, but that is one steep street that house is on!
One of the steepest in the UK, apparently. I believe that fairly recently it was officially supplanted as the very steepest by another street located in Wales.
Hardly apropos of nothing: that is one of the reasons why the painting cannot be removed elsewhere without robbing it of much of its impact.
A sign of quality street art.
So just what exactly is a buyer supposed to do with a Banksy house? I understand wanting to own his artwork, but are they going to live there?
Why wouldn’t they?
Because it’s just some random house, someone who can afford to buy a house just because of the graffiti painted on it is probably used to a much more swanky place.