Mission Mission

Photo by Jeremy Brooks.

Previously:

Bacon-Wrapped Narwhal

Narwhal Free-For-All

“And like that, poof, he’s gone.”  I am inclined to think that Otter was not in fact behind it this time.  It’s a good thing that everybody and their brother already photographed this to death, because now it’s really dead.  Alas, no one had the foresight to put up a sign in Cantonese warning that this art is “very hard to get it.”

Anyone know the story behind this Banksy whitewashing?  Any of the other Bansky pieces throughout the city suffer a similar fate?

UPDATE!!!  An anonymous commenter seems to have the scoop:

The building owner lives in Texas and received a notice from the city. Not knowing the significance of the piece, or what it was, he had it painted over. The owners of The Curiosity Shoppe live in the building and were obviously unable to convince him to keep it.

Yikes!  However, this is the kind of thing that happens when you have an out of state absentee property owner who doesn’t seem to know or care about the culture of the area in which his property resides.

Also, I was able to get a free Chinese language lesson out of this too.  Apparently, Cantonese and Mandarin refer only to spoken language, whereas written language is always known vaguely as Chinese.  So, even though most of the residents of Chinatown happen to be Cantonese speakers, that sign was nonetheless written in Chinese.  Case closed! 

Previously:

San Francisco Has Banksy Fever!

Banksy Fever Continues!

Enough Banksy for Chu?

Mission Local and Uptown Almanac have covered the mural conversation happening at 24th and Capp. Here’s Justin Beck‘s interpretation:

Glad to have some context. I wondered what small person was supposed to be yelling that.

They’re usually covered up by overly affordable travel gear or something when this Mission Street business is open, but at night I got a peek at some new murals in progress. They’re not nearly done yet, as you can see, but it’s never too early to take some guesses as to the artistic intentions.

Some kind of folk icon? Anti-authoritarian, definitely.

Then you’ve got this next one, got some buildings in there. Looks like maybe a straightened Leaning Tower of Pisa in the middle. But it’s in the clouds? Probably Valhalla.

KayVee.INC yesterday published this parade of costumed narwhals. I’m glad I still have six months to figure out how whether being a costumed narwhal for Halloween is doable or not. Click each one for link to photo page.

Are we over Banksy Fever? Ariel Dovas thinks “maybe”, but our top posts list says, “nope”.

Well, maybe it’s just Banksy Light-Cough at this point, but two new alleged Banksy pieces were discovered this weekend in places San Franciscans don’t go to very often: North Beach and Alcatraz:

On Columbus and Broadway

(via Toasted Blog)

On Alcatraz Island (!!!)

(via Uptown Almanac)

Finally, it looks like the folks who were blessed with Banksy’s “doctor” piece have realized it’s artistic merit (or business potential) and started cleaning up the vandalism it suffered last week at the hands of otter and others:

'It's very hard to get it'

(via SFist)

Penelope Popsicle just found this, the first phrase we’ve seen that might be able to compete in the same league with TOLD YO ASS!

KayVee.INC caught a snap of some random, senseless vandalism carved into the very sidewalks of our city.

(link to photo)

UPDATE: Ben found a second bit of street art on this slab, this one uses words, and so is easier to understand: What Kimmy said.

Photo and commentary by S. Pigeon.

Because the weekend’s not over yet. In Fisherman’s Wharf:

(photo, obviously, by Troy Holden)

UPDATE: Well, whatever this is, it’s been here since before 2010.