It had been in place for less than a decade, but the Banksy work had already reached a point of needing a touch-up.
That’s why art restorers have removed Banky’s deteriorating Migrant Child from the side of a building overlooking a Venetian canal to preserve the work for future public display, officials said Thursday.
The removal from the wall of Palazzo San Pantalon was carried out in consultation with people close to the secretive British street artist, according to Banca Ifis, a Venice-based bank with an art program that promotes art and culture.
The artwork depicting a shipwrecked child holding a pink smoke bomb and wearing a life-jacket appeared along Venice’s Rio di San Pantalon in May 2019, and was acknowledged by Banksy. Marked on online maps, it has become a tourist destination.
But years of neglect had led to the deterioration of about one-third of the work, the bank said.
The restoration is being overseen by Federico Borgogni, who previously removed dust and cleaned the surface before detaching a section of the palazzo’s facade overnight Wednesday, Banca Ifis said in a statement. The bank is financing the project, but didn’t release the cost of the operation.
The bank intends to display the work to the public as part of free cultural events it organizes once restoration is completed. No time frame was given.
The Art Newspaper reported that restorers cut out a section of the wall that displayed Migrant Child and then used “angle grinders and hand tools” to remove the slab, which was put in a crate and transported off-site.
Plans to restore Banksy’s mural were first reported in 2023, and not all welcomed the idea.
