Posted on 02/07/2009 5:57:33 PM PST by BenLurkin
A street artist famous for his red, white and blue "Hope" posters of President Obama has been arrested on warrants accusing him of tagging property with graffiti, police said Saturday.
Shepard Fairey was arrested Friday night on his way to the Institute of Contemporary Art for a kickoff event for his first solo exhibition, called "Supply and Demand."
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, Officer James Kenneally said. One of the locations was the railroad trestle by the landmark Boston University bridge over the Charles River, police said.
Fairey, 38, of Los Angeles, is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Brighton District Court, said Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk District Attorney. Wark said Fairey would also be arraigned on a default warrant related to a separate graffiti case in the Roxbury section of Boston.
Fairey has spent the last two weeks in the Boston area installing the ICA exhibit and creating outdoor art, including a 20-by-50 foot banner on the side of City Hall, according to a statement issued Saturday by the museum.
The museum said Fairey was released a few hours after his arrest. Boston police confirmed Fairey had been released, but did not know exactly when or the amount of his bail.
A man who answered the phone at Fairey's Los Angeles studio, Studio One, declined comment. Fairey's publicist and a California lawyer who has represented Fairey in a copyright case didn't immediately respond to e-mails seeking comment.
Fairey has been arrested numerous times for drawing on buildings and other private property without permission.
His Obama image has been sold on hundreds of thousands of stickers and posters, and was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington before Obama's inauguration.
The image is the subject of a copyright dispute with The Associated Press. Fairey argues his use of the AP photo is protected by "fair use," which allows exceptions to copyright laws based on, among other factors, how much of the original is used, what the new work is used for and how the original is affected by the new work.
A California lawyer who has represented Fairey in the copyright case didn't immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the arrest.
Obama’s first pardon!
Nothing compared to the damage his benefactor is going to do to the entire country. Illustrates the mindset these people have though, doesn’t it?
I always thought those posters looked very old Soviet Communist looking.
Fairey has been tagging in Boston since about 1993. He was a RISD student in Providence, RI, would walk to the bus and head up to Boston, his tags were all over the place.
He apparently has the same respect for private property that Obama does. “Spread the wealth,” “tag the walls,” it’s all the same thing.
One man’s art is another man’s graffiti. To some the tagger is an “artist” and to other’s he’s a vandal. I like pre-graffiti America better!
Is execution out of the question?
He will be liberated by the Hussein and coronated the Czar of Global Art Komissariat.
All the talk show heads will be choped off.
Long live USSA - United Socialist States of America.
Wow. That’s pretty hateful talk. In the large scheme of things, graffiti—especially of the more artistic/creative genre that Fairey makes—is pretty harmless.
It is just SO appropriate that the great HOPIECHANGIE poster of the 0 would be done by a turd who stole it and is a grafitti bum.
Semper Fi,
If you look at his website and the rest of his posters, you will see that the “communist style” is no accident. His whole work revolves around communist themes...Che, Stalin, and others...and he ALWAYS has America as the oppressor. Of course, now that bambi is in office, it will be his face that we will continue to have to see...yuck. I feel like I am in Orwell’s 1984
That'll teach um.
“Wow. That’s pretty hateful talk. In the large scheme of things, graffiti—especially of the more artistic/creative genre that Fairey makes—is pretty harmless.”
Hey can I tag your home? Or, if you are living off the taxpayers in subsidized housing, can I tag your car or bike or bong?
Funny how the rats tend to be so involved with illegal activity... almost like a prerequisite!
If you do, I certainly won’t advocate executing you ;)
Then let them do it to their own property. Tag mine, find out how much open desert NM has. It is vandalism, and encourages more crime when folks do nothing about it. Drop them where they stand.
Look, I never said it’s not criminal. It is. I was only trying, apparently poorly, to make the point that this is a non-violent crime, and CLEARLY not worthy of a response as severe as “is execution on the table?” I take it that the poster before was asking in jest, but it doesn’t strike me as much different from the insane comments that characterized Bush derangement syndrome.
For much more on Obama’s icon artist/communist propagandist, Shepard Fairey, see:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2180770/posts
The 18 x 24 posters make great woodstove starters.
In some circles arrest, divorce, and bastardy are resume builders.
http://www.duckywaddles.com/Scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=171
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http://www.duckywaddles.com/Scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=744
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"Stalin Lenin", Shepard Fairey,
limited edition silkscreen, signed
and numbered. 18"X24" *SOLD OUT*
Source: http://www.duckywaddles.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=429
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From Shepard Fairey's official website (ObeyGiant.com):
Check it out! I got a thank you note from Barack Obama. If he is elected, maybe I have a get out of jail free card. All kidding aside, I’m honored to be acknowledged by someone so important to the future of our country. Also, the Obama campaign asked me to do a poster illustration for sale on their site. It should be out next week on barackobama.com.-Shepard
http://obeygiant.com/post/check-it-out
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Here is the 'thank you' letter Barack Obama sent to Shepard Fairey:
"Dear Shepard, I would like to thank you for using your talent in support of my campaign. The political messages involved in your work have encouraged Americans to believe they can help change the status quo. Your images have a profound effect on people, whether seen in a gallery or on a stop sign. I am privileged to be a part of your artwork and proud to have your support. I wish you continued success and creativity.
Sincerely, Barack Obama.'"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/16/AR2008051601017.html
Source for letter image: Fairey's own website (ObeyGiant.com):
http://obeygiant.com/post/check-it-out
If the image of the letter should 'vanish' from Fairey's website, try this link:
http://www.notcot.com/images/obama_letter-to-shepard-fairey.jpg
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Portrait of Angela Davis by Obama artist Shepard Fairey:
Angela Davis
Source: The Jonathan Levine Gallery (link given above)
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From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
PROFILE: ANGELA DAVIS
* Communist professor at the University of California’s Santa Cruz campus
* Recipient of the Lenin “Peace Prize” from the police state of East Germany in 1979
* Provided an arsenal of weapons to Black Panthers who used them to kill a Marin Country judge in a failed attempt to free Davis' imprisoned lover, Black Panther murderer George Jackson
* Icon of the campus Left and frequent guest speaker at anti-war rallies
* Leader of a movement to free all criminals who are minorities claiming that they are political prisoners of the racist United States
* “The only path of liberation for black people is that which leads toward complete and radical overthrow of the capitalist class.”
Angela Yvonne Davis is a tenured professor in the “History of Consciousness” program at the University of California - Santa Cruz. A former member of the Black Panther Party, she is currently a “University Professor,” one of only seven in the entire California University system, which entitles her to a six-figure salary and a research assistant. This income is supplemented by speaking fees ranging from $10,000 to $20,000 per appearance on college campuses, where she is an icon of radical faculty, administrators, and students. Davis has also taught at UCLA and the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1303
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"Check it out! I got a thank you note from Barack Obama. If he is elected, maybe I have a get out of jail free card"
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
VIDEO: Obama icon artist, Shepard Fairey, discusses his numerous arrests (13!) in this May 2008 alternative media interview
(2:32 minutes):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozeTXRa7_zo&feature=related
Currently, capital "A" Art has little to do with art and is primarily political. The quality doesn't matter, but having the correct beliefs does. The tagging attitude of the artist is standard fare for the arts and sausages crowd. They do not believe laws apply to them. My department went through a thing with a woman that wanted to hang large painted fabrics in an airport terminal. Huge things. Ran the length of the terminal and hung fifteen feet down, painted with oil paints. When the fire marshal said they couldn't be hung because of problems with the fire code (think Cocoanut Grove) she came unglued. This is ART! Yeah, and it's oil soaked cloth, too. It's an extreme fire hazard. The inspectors were shocked at the vitriol of her reaction, but since I had been an art major in college, I could see an artistic tantrum coming from six blocks away.
This guy sells these 'Andre The Giant' stencils so that the customer can squirt his trademark on whatever public surface he pleases.In N.Y. Giuliani cracked down on assholes like this and guess what? Crime in general went way down. Everybody's quality of life went up. I guess gutting him and roasting his innards on a grill in front of his eyes is a little strict. Break his fingers and then make him clean up his mess with a toothbrush and some acetone. That'll work.
Wonder if there's room for a Fairey under Obama's bus with Wright and his grandmother?
Broken window theory. It works.
Fire codes are positive as well.
Sure Giuliani cracked down on graffiti, as one of many changes he instituted. And you’re right, crime in NYC has gone way down, although certainly some of that is attributable to the stock market bull run which priced so many out of the city. While cracking down on graffiti likely had some measurable impact, it’s not quite the cause:effect that you suggest it to be. He also got rid of strip clubs, drug addicts, loiterers, panhandlers, trash, prostitutes, and panhandlers. The city is better off now, as I know very well.
I take it you seriously would like his hand broken for this; that strikes me as authoritarian. I’m OK with remunerating the aggrieved party and serving some jail time, but this is probably an irreconcilable difference between the two of us.
Fair is fair.
Art like all truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
A bastardized quotation from Arthur Schopenhauer.
This thread is a good place to learn who Shepard Fairey is:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2121506/posts
Obama’s Venomous Artist-Fundraiser
Fairey has a company ("Obey") that produces his own artwork, such as these.
See Fairey's website: http://www.thegiant.org/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Prints
Obama has written Fairey that he admires "the political messages involved in your work." (See Post #24 above.)
The political messages in Fairey's art are:
1) Communist dictators are god-like supermen
2) The United States is a police state at home and an imperialist oppressor abroad
3) Capitalism is an evil system based on greed and exploitation
4) Ordinary Amerikkkan workers are guilty of blithely supporting an unjust system
5) The only good Americans are those who fight The System
6) The communist Peoples' Armies will soon triumph over Amerikkkan imperialism and bring peace to the world out of the barrel of a gun.
The USA Network's "approval" of Fairey is an outrage!
Did you see Shepard Fairey run rings around Charlie Rose on Feb. 2nd? Charlie shows some of Fairey's anti-American art, Fairey shrugs it off with a bland explanation, and Charlie just accepts it.
Thanks. Watching it now.
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