A piece of artwork by the notoriously private British graffiti artist Banksy has a new downtown Toronto home, after developers stepped in to create a permanent installation.
“Police Guard Pink Balloon Dog,” an artwork created by Banksy in 2010, used to be on the exterior of what was formerly OPP headquarters in downtown Toronto. The building was torn down to make way for residential and commercial towers, but a section of the wall with the art was saved. Menkes, the company who redeveloped the site at 1 York Street preserved the concrete slab.
After several years, and thousands of dollars, the piece is now behind one and half tonnes of glass in Toronto’s underground Path system. The artwork is now part of a permanent display of a larger indoor installation.
Jared Menkes of Menkes Developments said they wanted to bring the artwork back to its original home. “This is literally where it was before,” he told CTV Toronto.
If anything, Menkes said he hopes the piece of art brings some joy to passersby.
“Everyone’s in a rush, but maybe this’ll make people look up and smile for a moment,” he said. There used to be seven Banksy works scattered around Toronto, but several were destroyed or painted over. Now only two exist, including “Police Guard.”
With files from CTV Toronto’s Scott Lightfoot
