Banksy mural moved from gallery after threats

A graffiti work by guerrilla artist Banksy, who prefers to remain anonymous,has been taken off display by a Detroit gallery after it received threats that the work would be destroyed or defaced.

The work was discovered on a 2.1-by-2.4-metre cinderblock located at an abandoned plant in early May. The 5555 Nonprofit Gallery and Studios decided to move the entire block in order to preserve and protect the work, but safety issues arose.

"There was a lot of anxiety with the threats, so our board of directors requested that we move it until it can be displayed safely," Carl W. Goines, executive director of the gallery, told the Detroit Free Press.

The stencilled mural depicts a dejected-looking boy holding a can of red paint next to the statement: "I remember when all this was trees."

The gallery, run by a group of artists, said it was given permission to remove the 680-kilogram block.

Since then, the gallery has been lambasted for doing so. Critics say they had no right to remove it,took away the objective of graffiti art, and stripped it of its power and meaning.

Luis Croquer, head of the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, called the action to take theblock"unprecedented," and noted that in most places, you wouldn't be able to take a wall home.

Banksy did an art flyby in Toronto in May as well, just as his film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, was premiering in Canada.

The art provocateur left three stencilled pieces in downtown Toronto.