thinker (stencil graffiti)
Posted July 2, 2010
This recently showed up in the same spot as the stencil of Einstein Rolling Dice that appeared back when Banksy was making his mark in the City, and will probably disappear just as quickly. I think the building owner must have lots of gray paint on hand for just this purpose. No marker signature this time, so if Banksy hasn’t made another visit, “L.T.” is probably just cheesed that the other piece got painted over so fast.
The Banksy trademark Rat further up Haight Street is still proudly in place, annotated with newer tags.
The thinker piece was still in place when I last went by two days ago. Since the posted image went online, the signature “L.T.” has been added using an opaque white magic marker. LT is being added by someone other than the creator of either the Einstein or the Thinker stencils.
As the Einstein image is not included in the stencils Banksy acknowledges from his San Francisco visit at his website, http://www.banksy.co.uk/, the authorship of “Einstein Rolling Dice”, as well as the Thinker image, remains unknown – although my local movie house, the Red Vic, has claimed the Einstein piece for Banksy in their current flyer.