The 6-foot-tall wall section containing the artwork displayed at a shopping centre in New York City.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images
When the enigmatic street artist Banksy spray-painted a heart-shaped balloon covered with a Band-Aid on the wall of a Brooklyn warehouse, the nondescript brick building was instantly transformed into an art destination and the canvas of an unlikely graffiti battle.
Almost as soon as Banksy revealed the piece back in 2013, an anonymous tagger brazenly walked up and spray painted the words “Omar NYC” in red beside the balloon, to the dismay of onlookers.
Days later, someone stenciled “is a little girl” in white and pink beside Omar’s tag, followed by a seemingly sarcastic phrase in black: “I remember MY first tag.” Some think it was Banksy himself who secretly returned to the scene to add the rejoinder.
The apparent graffiti battle didn’t end there. Another tagger also attempted to leave his mark but was stymied by security guards. Today the phrase “SHAN” is still visible in light purple paint.
Maria Georgiadis, whose family owned the now-demolished warehouse and ultimately removed the section of wall to preserve the artwork, says the graffiti pastiche is quintessentially New York.
“It looks like a war going on,” she said recently. “They’re literally going at it on the wall.”
The preserved wall, dubbed “Battle to Survive a Broken Heart,” will be going up for sale May 21 at Guernsey’s, the New York auction house.
Published – May 03, 2025 10:51 am IST