Banksy in L.A: 14-Year-Old Singer Pia Mia Serenades Banksy Artwork in Westwood (Video)

By Dennis Romero Fri., Feb. 18 2011 at 8:01 AM

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Pia Mia sings for Banksy.

British guerrilla artist Banksy has stirred up quite a whirlwind of media, emotion and debate over his street pieces, spotted around L.A. recently in advance of his shot at an Academy Award for Exit Through the Gift Shop.

A crowd gathered and hurumphed earlier this week when CBS Outdoor apparently tore down a piece he painted on a Sunset Boulevard billboard. There's a even a Facebook group to defend his recent piece on the side of a Westwood Urban Outfitters.

But nothing quite beats a 14-year-old belting out Michael Jackson's "Will You Be There" with the polish of an American Idol finalist:

Aw. So cute.

Yeah, media stunt or not, it's an instant hit.

A tipster tells the Weekly teen Pia Mia, a Westwood resident, was simply walking home from lunch when she saw the hubbub surrounding Banksy's boy-with-a-gun piece and decided to sing.

While his reputed six-figure work has been taken down and covered up at other L.A. locales this week, ~~Banksy~~ [oops] an Urban Outfitters employee tells the MELROSEandFAIRFAX blog that first broke the story of Banksy's latest L.A. work that " ... as an artist myself, I only want the utmost preservation for any artwork, especially of this magnitude."

And while the Facebook group set up to defend Banksy's Westwood piece seems to think Urban Outfitters might take it down or cover it up, MELROSEandFAIRFAX notes:

"There are a lot of conspiracy theories swirling about whether Banksy placed this piece on the Urban Outfitters as a reward for selling the most copies of his book Wall and Piece ..."

Maybe Pia Mia's serenade will help give it a long life.

Tags:

art, Bansky, Pia Mia, Urban Outfitters, Westwood

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Evan G.

"Bansky tells the MELROSEandFAIRFAX blog that first broke the story of his latest L.A. work that ' ... as an artist myself, I only want the utmost preservation for any artwork, especially of this magnitude.'"

That wasn't Banksy that said that. Here is the quote from M&F, which is talking about the Urban Outfitters employee who spotted it and took a photo before some of it was buffed:

An employee at the Urban Outfitters where this was done provided the pics. He and his fellow employees are the only ones to see it before the parts got buffed. There are a lot of conspiracy theories swirling about whether Banksy placed this piece on the Urban Outfitters as a reward for selling the most copies of his book 'Wall and Piece', but nothing underhanded is happening here. He told us, "As an artist myself, I only want the utmost preservation for any artwork, especially of this magnitude."

Dennis Romero

Ah. Sorry. Thanks. Will fix.

Evan G.

Thanks.

The Westwood one seems to have a permanent crowd. Walking past there today, all of the people wanting to snap a picture were unhappy when a truck parked in front of it to make a delivery at the coffeehouse there on the alley.