An Art Grab Like Never Before

In an art grab of unprecedented levels, the owner of the Joyrich building on Melrose cut 6 separate pieces of street art out of the wall. Click the jump for more

It is well known that sometimes a Banksy piece can be worth more than the building it was put up on. But the street art fever has reached a whole new heights.

The owner of this building cut out and removed 6 separate pieces of street art from the wall of the building. According to the workman, he simply wanted the pieces.

Apparently, when we joked 'Oops, You Forgot the Art, ' they hadn't.

We are absolutely astounded by this move, and think it speaks worlds about how far people will go to get a piece of street art, even if its not a Banksy.

Who knows? Maybe the owner did think these were Banksy pieces, and many of them do have that theme. We had covered each of the pieces as they went up and you can see the progression of the wall from the pics. The pieces that were cut out of the wall included a take on Banksy's Balloon Girl from Free Humanity, a Banksy themed cut-out piece from Insurgency Inc, a gas mask girl from Accountability?, two gas masked girls skipping rope and 'slow children' from new artist 'Shawny', and an Oscar themed piece with a girl climbing the statue from Desire Obtain Cherish.

Some people in the street art community might find it funny that 4 out of the 6 pieces were wheat pastes, and are easily removed with water (you don't have to cut the whole wall out!). Lol.

Still, we think this is a good sign for the street art movement in general. And, we think that this is the first piece ever put up from Shawny. What an introduction to the game!