Good morning and good night: a new work by anonymous artist Banksy, titled The morning is broken, appeared in the county of Kent, in the south of England, and has already been demolished. The mural, of a person and a cat pushing back corrugated iron curtains, was painted on a closed window of a 500-year-old abandoned farmhouse on Blacksole Farm in Herne Bay, according to local media. Kent online. Banksy confirmed its authenticity in a Instagram post today (March 15) which showed both the completed work and its destruction by construction workers.
The workers said Kent online that they “felt sick” on discovering that they had destroyed a real work of Banksy. The builders have now managed to dig the remains of the room from the rubble. Adam Brooks, a local Banksy fan who saw the news and visited the site, described the emerging fragments as akin to seeing “the Holy Grail coming out of a dumpster”.
The morning is broken is the second work authenticated by Banksy this year on his Instagram account, both located in Kent. THE previous job, announced by the artist on Valentine’s Day, took a stand against domestic violence. It showed a woman in a 1950s-style gingham dress with a bruised eye that appears to have thrown her abusive partner into a large chest freezer. Located in Margate, this the works were dismantled by the town hall—removing the freezer, a broken chair and an empty beer bottle—“for security reasons” just hours after its unveiling. The freezer was later returned by authorities, but the entire facility is being dismantled and moved to Dreamland, a nearby amusement park, where it will be viewable for free, according to local media. Kent Live.
Banksy is known for the political and social messages that inspire his works. The artist even traveled to Ukraine last year to make images inspired by the russian invasionand next created a series of prints to raise money for the Ukraine relief effort.
So what’s the message with his latest work? “I think he must have wanted it destroyed because he usually publishes his work if he wants people to see it,” says Brooks. He described how builders told him they had spotted a man in black taking photos of the site but hadn’t thought of it. “It obviously dragged on to get it torn down,” Brooks said.
Maybe after seeing so many of his works dismantled and turned into commodities…Banksy’s street art has sold for millions on the open market without personal monetary gain – the artist rejoices in seeing the panic that ensues when a piece is unknowingly destroyed. As Kent online The Facebook post reads: “Think how much it could have sold for.”
