Wall Missing; Thief Sought
Police continue to pursue leads into the theft of a large graffiti mural by the notorious anonymous tagger known as “Wildstyle.”
Police Seek Missing Wall
Police continue to pursue leads into the theft of a large graffiti mural by the notorious anonymous tagger known as “Wildstyle.”
While the theft of art from galleries and museums is hardly unheard of, what is peculiar about this theft is that the artwork was painted on a wall – and this wall is now missing. Workers at a warehouse belonging to South Seas Tiki Trading on Water Street were alerted to a possible break-in. Upon arrival at their warehouse, they found a chunk of wall measuring 3.5 meters wide by 5.5 meters tall missing from the alley side of the building.
However, no items were missing from their inventory. “We thought someone smashed through the wall in order to break into the warehouse. You wouldn’t maybe set off the window alarms,” said Mick Tavuchis, general manager at the warehouse. “But nothing was gone. We couldn’t figure it out until someone remembered, hey, didn’t there used to be some crazy painting of a rabbit there since last week? I guess like someone liked it so much they had to take it home.”
The alley is covered by at least five security cameras belonging to different warehouses, according to the Acme Municipal Police, but none was functional during the hours when the mural would have been removed.
There are apparently no high-resolution photographs of the mural. It appeared in the background of an Acme Clarion article about street vendors last week. The Clarion's art critic, Brunhilde Krinkel, stated that the mural was "A distorted giant bunny eating a carrot in the style of Francisco Goya's 'Saturn Devouring His Son.'"
The theft is not unprecedented, however. After the success of Jean-Michel Basquiat in the 1980s, persons unknown were reported to have made off with doors he had marked with his famous "Samo" graffiti tag in the New York City neighborhood of SoHo.
Police are seeking the assistance of anyone in the art world who might know what collectors may have expressed interest in large-format graffiti art recently.
“Who steals a wall?” remarked Yuri Kaplovitz, a forklift operator at the warehouse. “And how? That’s a ton of bricks at least. Giant robots, maybe?”
