Melbourne Just Keeps On Destroying Its Banksy Stencils

Melbourne's supply of original works by world-renowned street artist Banksy continues to dwindle after a group of paintings completed by the Brit more than 10 years ago were "destroyed" as a result of construction work in inner-city AC/DC Lane.

The demolition of three more Banksy stencils at the AC/DC Lane location follows previous incidents that saw two stencils — also located in AC/DC Lane — destroyed in 2014, as well as the high-profile damage caused to the artist's Parachuting Rat in Prahran back in 2012.

The council also painted over another Banksy rat stencil in Hosier Lane in 2010, while vandals were responsible for another biting the dust in 2011.

According to Fairfax, the works had been in place since 2003, when the British artist painted them on a visit to the city. The most recently lost batch are thought to be the country's "largest remaining group of Banksy street art stencils", says writer, historian and owner of Melbourne Walks Meyer Eidelson.

As Fairfax notes, Eidelson took to his company's website to decry the removal of the artworks, which appears to have been the result of the installation of a new doorway at the AC/DC Lane premises where the stencils previously lived.

He describes the lost stencils as being "as seminal to the modern street art movement as the Aboriginal paintings destroyed on the Papunya school wall in 1973".

"As the owner of one of Melbourne's oldest walking tour compan[ies] I should have seen it coming," Eidelson wrote on his website. "Since 1992 we have been fighting to promote the city's heritage but the people are losing control over their own city.

"The fabulous old city that tells the Melbourne story, the city that locals and visitors come here to see, is diminishing every year."

Acknowledging his own anger (and apparent guilt) over the art's fate — "I thought this iconic art was safer by hiding it rather than advertising its existence," he wrote — Eidelson has called for art history aficionados to join the cause to preserve Melbourne's cultural heritage; for more information, see Melbourne Heritage Action's website.