Street art costs a few beers

Who owns street art? Anyone who has the gall to take it home, apparently.

A Kingsland artwork created for public enjoyment has found its way into the hands of one of New Zealand's top clothing designers, who has hung it in her studio.

Artist Kurt Ensor's image of a leather-clad, bass-wielding Helen Clark disappeared from outside a Kingsland construction site.

The next time Ensor saw his Punk's Not Dead artwork, it was in a Next magazine article, pictured hanging in the studio of designer Kate Sylvester.

The 2m stencilled artwork had been put up on hoardings on New North Rd, Kingsland.

"When I heard someone had taken it away so they could own and enjoy it to the detriment of everyone else, I thought it was really uncool."

Next said Sylvester's husband, Wayne Conway, got the art from the construction site in exchange for some beer for the workers.

 

Sylvester said: "To me, stencils are graffiti, just like tagging. It could have just as easily been posted or tagged over the same night. It's transient and there's no ownership involved. To me, graffiti is just graffiti."

Elliot O'Donnell, a director of graffiti art business Disruptiv, said: "Although the artwork is on someone else's property, without direct permission, the intellectual property belongs to the artist no matter what. You'd expect them to try and track down the artist if they had respect for what the artist had done."

Intellectual property specialist and lawyer Karen Soich said Sylvester should have known better.

"As an artist herself, she of all people should respect the intellectual property of others."