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Crowds booed as a new Banksy artwork of a stretching cat on an empty, distressed advertising billboard was removed in north-west London hours after it was revealed.
The piece by the elusive street artist was dismantled by three men who said they were “hired” by a “contracting company” to take down the billboard for safety reasons.
The elusive street artist posted a photo of the design of the stretching cat on Instagram on Saturday without any caption.
Located in Cricklewood, north west London, the design depicts a large cat with an upturned nail as it appears to stretch out its body.
The artwork is the sixth to be unveiled in London by the Bristol-based artist this week, in what appears to be a new animal-themed collection, after he previously revealed a goat, elephants, monkeys, a wolf and pelicans.
Hours after Banksy confirmed the design was his in an Instagram post, crowds gathered from across London to see the piece before men, who claimed to be contractors, arrived.
A contractor, who only wanted to give his name as Marc, said that they were going to pull the boarding down on Monday and replace it, but the removal had been brought forward to Saturday in case someone “rips it down and leaves it unsafe”.
He said: “We’ll store that bit (the artwork) in our yard to see if anyone collects it but if not it’ll go in a skip.
“I’ve been told to keep it careful in case he wants it.”
The removal effort was briefly paused by the police as officers checked the contractors were approved to take the piece down before they were allowed to continue on with the work.
On Friday there were pelicans pinching fish from a London chip shop sign in Walthamstow, east London, and a wolf howling on a satellite dish was announced on Thursday in Peckham, south London.
Less than an hour after it was disclosed, the wolf design was removed by three men, according to a witness who told the PA news agency that he filmed them, which led to one of the men throwing his phone on a roof.
“It’s a great shame we can’t have nice things and it’s a shame it couldn’t have lasted more than an hour,” he said.
A statement from the Metropolitan Police said: “We were called to reports of a stolen satellite dish containing artwork at 1.52pm on Thursday August 8 in Rye Lane, Peckham.“There have been no arrests. Inquiries continue.
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”A spokesman for Banksy told the PA news agency that the artist is neither connected to nor endorses the theft, and that they have “no knowledge as to the dish’s current whereabouts”.
The first piece of graffiti in Banksy’s new animal-themed series, which was announced on Monday, is near Kew Bridge in south-west London and shows a goat with rocks falling down below it, just above where a CCTV camera is pointed.
On Tuesday the artist added silhouettes of two elephants with their trunks stretched towards each other on the side of a building near Chelsea, west London.
This was followed by three monkeys looking as though they were swinging underneath a bridge over Brick Lane, near a vintage clothing shop in the popular east London market street, not far from Shoreditch High Street.
The street artist, whose identity is unknown but widely speculated on, was recently criticised by then home secretary James Cleverly, who said the artwork he created for Glastonbury Festival was “trivialising” small boat crossings and “vile”.
The artist had said he was the person behind an inflatable boat filled with migrant dummies which had been crowdsurfed at the music festival in June, during performances by Bristol indie punk band Idles and rapper Little Simz.
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