Students noticed a cryptic graffito on the wall immediately outside of Mory’s across from Toad’s Sunday morning.
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The tag, with its distinctive stenciling and sardonic humor, has has some students wondering whether the infamous British graffiti artist Banksy drew it. It depicts a boy with a pageboy cap and a large hammer looking off into a distant, cloudy blue background. The word “BELIEVE” is scrawled next to his left leg, while several bricks—which appear to be part of the piece, as if the boy has removed them from the wall itself—lie beneath the figure’s feet. The graffito was stenciled a few feet away from a sign that reads: “the adjacent passageway is the property of Yale University. Access may not be regulated without notice.”
The graffito appears about three weeks after a previous two-part piece—depicting another boy and a lost dog—was stenciled between Dunham Lab and Leet-Oliver Memorial. Banksy, a political activist and painter whose true identity is unconfirmed, is known for periodically tagging streets, walls, and bridges throughout the world. The boy with the hammer, however, lacks the artist’s signature and was the only tag to be found around campus this weekend. Go see for yourself and judge whether this is just a trick or a real treat.
UPDATE: 7:39 P.M.
Or not? Someone claimed responsibility for the graffito in a tweet saying: “They think I’m Bansky? blush.“