masterpiece gone, masterpiece come…, then just gone

Last November, in the wake of my previous post on Buy Me A Coffee about the decay in 2019 of my favourite Reykjavík murals, I had the idea of checking with Google Street View for more recent images of The Monument.

Bingo! From the same year, 2021! And the building had not been demolished for a new urban project as I suspected was the intention of local authorities, but simply reverted to a state similar to before Guido van Helten’s intervention. This is his side mural:

Héðinhúsid side mural in autumn 2019 and at some point in 2021 as shown by Google. The left side of the building had been downgraded.

In 2019, his wonderful front murals, had swiftly been replaced with another fantastic masterpiece, which, moreover, seems one towering example of ephemerality in the world panorama of mural street art. Mine must be among the very few graphic testimonies that it has ever existed:

The only piece still remaining in 2021 of the original set was the adjacent but separate one Afi (2013):

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