Shepard Fairey arrested last night in Boston
Los Angeles artist Shepard Fairey was arrested Friday night in Boston on two outstanding warrants for tagging property with graffiti. Fairey was in town for the opening of his first solo museum exhibition, “Supply and Demand,” at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art.
According to today’s LA Times:
Two warrants were issued for Fairey on Jan. 24 after police determined he’d tagged property in two locations with graffiti based on the Andre the Giant street art campaign from his early career, police Officer James Kenneally said Saturday.
Fairey willl be arraigned on misdeameanor charges on Monday in Brighton District court.
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Live by Wheatpaste, Die by Wheatpaste…
Seeing his Andre posters around town in recent months had me wondering as to why he and his crew still do wheatpaste postering? What with all his established fame, why is he compelled to keep it going? It would seem in this case, his fame has outpaced his one-time anonymity to society at-large that kept him from prosecution by proxy.
Almost sounds like a publicity stunt.
He should stick to designing shopping bags for Saks.
I’m just confused by many of the people who complain about billboard blight defend wheatpaste postering. The latter may be more "hardcore", but it’s still advertising. Does this make the billboard companies who violate city code "hardcore"?
Angelcity art – By definition all "street art" with a business plan attached is run of the mill advertising, not a stunt.
The overhead is just different from what a major brand would employ. Being arrested is just part of the overhead, and of course it does generate faux-outlaw credibility. "Street artists" who are well known and have monetized their brand get invoiced by municipalities for the damages caused, the artist ignores it, gets their credit destroyed, and then later settles with the city for pennies on the dollar for the damage they’ve caused. At least that’s how it works in LA. So yes, your tax dollars subsidize the advertising campaigns of "street artists" with monetized brands. Hey, it’s easier than getting a grant!
Best comment yet on this story left at Gawker: "Isn’t this the same police department that shit their pants over some lite brites a couple of years ago?"
Yes, and Boston has been free of Aqua Teen Hunger Force LEDs ever since. Never forget 1-31-07!
So just to be clear he wasn’t arrested wheatpasting, he was arrested for old warrants that the BPD had issued on him, they knew the gallery show he was going to be up and swooped in to grab him. Obviously this is a lot of work and coordination and (taxpayer money) being spent on a simple vandalism charge and it more than likely payback as the Mayor of Boston invited him to do a large banner and the BPD was not happy about that – this is more internal Boston feather puffing than anything else.
What’s the dfference between wheatpasting and tagging (i.e. grafitti)? They are both vandalism as street art. If you support Shepard Fairey’s art then you support the gangster who tags your garage, no?
No.
[...] war. Fairey, der als ehemaliger Graffiti-Sprayer Gerichtsverfahren im Zusammenhang mit seiner Kunst gewohnt ist, nimmt die Sache zwar locker, verklagt AP schon mal quasi präventiv und beruft sich auf das im [...]