As Banksy coverage this month has made The City go nuts over street art, it has also prompted a mad rush of other NYC graffiti artists to get in on a piece of the action. Artists tagging or defacing (depending on your point of view) most of Banksy’s public displays prompted Perry Levy, a Brooklynite who calls himself the #BanksyRestorationSociety, to go out and do his part to upkeep Banksy’s art. In a video by Animal, he expresses how “lame” it is that people deface the work of the artist who comes to NYC at a time when the city “needs all the love it can get.”
When someone stole the flower from the 9/11 memorial piece last week, Levy said in the interview, he had to get the right flower to replace it. He also bought extra flowers and left them there for the people who wanted to take the a flower for themselves, without disturbing the art piece. He has received mixed feedback about his restoration work, the guy who stole the original flower even threatened to “burn down” all the replacement flowers. For the most part, the street art community seems to be grateful for Levy’s work, especially his sense of responsibility for the art pieces. He calls the restored “You Complete Me” piece a “mashup” and says, “I [just] wanted to see the piece one more day. You know, the Mona Lisa piece was restored… I’m just trying to be a positive force, you know, in the sea of negativity.” Similarly, a team of construction workers placed plexiglass over “Concrete Confessional” at Cooper Union last week.
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