British graffiti artist Banksy popped up again on Monday, tagging a wall in Red Hook with a 3-dimensional red heart-shaped balloon covered in bandages — which was quickly defaced by a rival artist, according to reports.
Graffiti artist “Omar NYC,” also known as “SWATCH,” spray-painted over the heart and scrawled his own name next to the artwork in front of shocked fans who’d gathered to gawk at the piece, reports the blog AnimalNY.
“Peopled booed him,” Alma Aguilera, who photographed the jealous wannabe in the act, told the blog. Aguilera also said the vandal was with a group posing as a news crew before he whipped out the spray paint.
AnimalNY reports that “Omar” has a long history of defacing projects by the much more famous Banksy.
The floating Mylar balloon mural was painted on a wall of a building at the corner of King and Van Brunt streets.
“This piece is obviously an iconic representation of the battle to survive a broken heart. It’s an uplifting visual poem to that most fragile of human emotions that seem to move within us as if on a soft breeze,” an audio guide at banksy.co.uk explains.
The narrator then appears to take a hit of helium and, with gas-altered high pitched voice, goes into a raunchy impersonation of Mickey Mouse.
Banksy started his project on Oct. 1 and has created five works so far, taking Sunday off.
The street art has been lauded, lampooned, altered, erased and defaced by people and pets alike.
He has just over three weeks to go in his project, entitled “Better Out Than In.”