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Artist Questions 'Motivation and the Timing' of Boston Arrest
Artist Frank Shepard Fairey criticized Boston police today after he pleaded not guilty to graffiti-related charges, questioning the "motivation and the timing" of his arrest on Friday hours before his opening at the Institute of Contemporary Art.
Street artist Frank Shepard Fairey appeared at the Institute of Contemporary Art to promote his show earlier this month. (David L. Ryan/Globe Staff) "I'm making art that not everybody likes," Fairey told reporters outside Roxbury Municipal Court.
Police arrested Fairey at about 9:15 p.m. on Friday as he was heading to the "Experiment Night" event at the ICA, where more than 750 people were waiting for him to appear. The arrest was timed, Fairey said, "in a way that was designed to create as much inconvenience for me and the museum as possible."
Police have said that warrants for Fairey's arrest were issued on Jan. 24 for damage to property due to graffiti. A police spokesman did not immediately respond to a phone message when asked about Fairey's comments about the timing of his arrest.
An arrest affidavit filed today described Fairey as an "idol to members of the graffiti subculture" who has been defacing property in Boston since 1989. Fairey's signature tag is a stencil of the professional wrestler Andre the Giant and the words "Obey the Giant" or "Obey."
When Fairey returned recently to Boston for his show at the ICA, he allegedly "victimized new properties while defiantly stating in media outlets that he will not stop his unauthorized posting of his tag," according to the affidavit requesting a warrant for his arrest. "Suspect Fairey continues to engage in a constant and systemic assault on Boston Neighborhoods."
In media interviews leading up to his ICA show, Fairey admitted, according to the affidavit, "illegally tagging property ... recently in Boston."
Fairey, 38, has gained prominence for his "Hope" image of President Barack Obama, which has been hung in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. The Los Angeles-based artist is locked in a dispute with The Associated Press over whether he illegally used a copyrighted AP photo to create the poster. Fairey told reporters today that he filed a counter suit against the AP today in federal court in New York.
"They are suppressing an artist's freedom of transformative expression," Fairey said.
As Fairey appeared in courts in Brighton and Roxbury today, his defense attorney said that additional graffiti-related charges are being filed against the artist.
The defense attorney, Jeffrey P. Wiesner, referenced the new charges today as he criticized Boston police in comments made after Fairey appeared in Brighton District Court. Wiesner said that police exercised "bad judgment" when they arrested his client for allegedly pasting art without permission.
"And I think it is bad judgment that they are now seeking further charges," Wiesner said.
Boston police would not discuss any additional charges. "They have some other incidents in which the suspect has been implicated," said Officer Eddie Crispin, who declined to provide specifics. "The investigation is still ongoing."
According to the arrest affidavit filed today, Fairey has committed at least six acts of vandalism within the City of Boston. A hearing has been scheduled in Brighton on March 10 when a clerk magistrate will decide whether there is evidence to support additional charges, Wiesner said.
Fairey was released on personal recognizance after his brief hearings in Brighton and Roxbury. Dressed in a suit coat and dark collared shirt with no tie, Fairey appeared with four representatives from the ICA.
The Brighton charge dates to Sept. 16, 2000, when a police officer allegedly saw Fairey post a tag in Allston. At the time, Fairey was carrying "an 'excessive' amount of graffiti propaganda and stickers, according to the arrest affidavit filed today. Fairey never appeared in Brighton District Court to face the charge, which carries a possible fine of $100.
The case is Roxbury Municipal Court is much more recent. According to court documents, Fairey allegedly defaced a Massachusetts Turnpike Authority building at Massachusetts Avenue and Newbury Street. Fairey is accused of stenciling five images of a black-and-white face above the word "Obey." The charge carries a maximum sentence of two years in the Suffolk House of Correction and could force Fairey to pay restitution and lose his driver's license for year, according to his lawyer. Fairey has told the Globe he has been arrested 14 times.
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32 Comments so far
Show All1. Was the editor asleep when this article went to print? I found at least too errors.
2. He wasn't wearing a tie?!!! OMG, he must be a terrorist!
I found at least one error in your comment. I believe you meant "two" errors.
Why "stoop" there?
The poster was making fun of the author for misspelling the word, by intentionally mispelling it another way...
The author also wrote "stoop" instead of "stop"... I think he was in a hurry and used spell check, but didn't proof read it properly...
All the artist of Boston should go out and art-i-nize the walls of abandoned property in Boston!
OBEY!
Most of that property is not abandoned - those buildings have owners and those neighborhoods have residents. They do not appreciate rich suburban white punks coming in and vandalizing their already distressed neighborhoods.
---USAn---
The dude is a copycat photoshop "artist" who commodifies iconic imagery from revolutionary posters and pop culture...
Then prints them on t-shirts and jeans for his clothing & merchandise line sold in boutiques to hipsters...
Fairy doesn't give credit or ask permission from the various artists & photographers whose original work he "referenced"...
He has been sued or asked for royalties or credit by the WWF, AP press, and several living artists... He hasn't complied...
The dude is a talentless hack who has no clue about the social justice movements that he is profitting off of...
He is an opportunistic media whore whose "art" devalues and demeans the spirit of Che, Angela Davis, and the Black Panthers...
He uses the same old word and face for all of his work, like branding, since he lacks the creative spirit to create his own style...
You know it's bad when Wallmart sells a cheap knock off of your clothing line...
Why is this even in the news?
I'm not sure why you have such a beef with this guy but I think you're wrong on all points:
Fairy has obvious talent and skill — and does essentially with art what hip hop did sampling classics — he creates a great aesthetic that symbolically satires the propaganda images of advertising that surround us everywhere, and generates an important message... to question the images around you. "Obey" is meant to be ironic and has certainly not lost relevancy as advertising dollars have grown to the hundreds of billion per year.
He sells t-shirts and posters of his work and lives off his efforts, all of which promote questioning one's environment and promoting social justice movements. His style is immediately recognizable and very much his own. Anyone familiar with his work immediately recognizes his style which is why there CAN be knock-offs.
When I was a kid, his stickers were the only ever-present sign of anti-establishment thought I saw on a regular basis. Not sure what inspiration you're providing here.
I agree. Fairy is an artist and quite good at it.
I think he is on safe ground with the Obama image, especially since he didn't make any money off of it.
On this though, he should be prosecuted. Grafitti is art, but you don't have a right to place your art on places that don't ask you to put it there. Tagging really doesn't do anything good for a neighborhood.
I guess you have never had your work plagerized, so that isn't an issue for you...
I think that there are two issues... Intellectual property rights and giving credit where credit is due...
Sampling a James brown horn is not what I am talking about, since JB and alot of other artists of that era never owned the rights to their own music... It is the music industry that sues artists for sampling and listeners for copying their intellectual copyrights, which I dont believe should exist...
That being said, "referencing" images from pop culture, like Warhol did with the soup can, was art in the sense that "even an ordinary artifact can be art" which was making fun of the self-important art being churned out by his conteporaries at the time...
Also I have seen dozens of artists take images from pop culture and alter them in such a way to show the absurdity or callousness of capitalism and consumer culture, of which I don't get from Fairey's posters...
I have also seen hundreds of artists mention in the title or elsewhere the other artists they are lifting from,
and give credit where credit is due...
There is no law or ethical issue with making a collage or photoshop in art class, or elsewhere...
The difference is that this guy is commodifying the revolutionary and counterculture icons, and profitting from it...
All Fairey has to do is write a letter to the photographer or silkscreen artist and ask for permission...
Odds are they will say yes, since it will be promoting the original artist's work as well, and then mention the source...
If they say no, then find a different image, or alter it enough that it becomes its own style...
Or even better, actually draw or paint something unique, and photoshop that into a poster...
From the dozen examples I saw on http://www.art-for-a-change.com/obey/index.htm
only cosmetic changes were made, like a different border or color, then adding his word and face...
If this clown saw himself as a part of a community of artists (I believe everyone is an artist)...
Then he would understand the solidarity of crediting your sources, on his website or elsewhere...
If he wants to capitalize off of another artists work, he should offer a royalty to the artists he is referencing...
Since most of work was done by a previous artist, he shouldn't be trying to pass it off as his own until he gets called on it...
Convenient, like so many online message board posters, to criticize so heavily someone you probably know nothing about. You talk about revolutionaries, social justice movements... but what have YOU done?
At least Fairey does something. You may not appreciate it or consider it your way of making a difference, but you're probably just some lazy internet surfer jealous of his fluke celebrity status so you poke holes in it however you can.
As a great man once opined: "Don't hate the playa, hate the game."
Also, for those of you who are so outspoken against graffiti, you should watch the documentary BOMB IT - it changed the way I think and felt about graffiti. On their website is this quote:
"Graffiti belongs to everyone and no one. On a section of a condemned wall, I put up a graffito... a bank director stopped the construction work, had my carving cut out as a fresco and inlayed it in the wall of his apartment."
- Pablo Picasso
Always try to thing of things from another point of view.
"Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the shadow"
I have nothing against graffiti or postering in General... I think you are confusing me with another person...
As for criticizing another artist... I am criticizing his rip-off art, not his political views or tactics...
As for assuming that I am a lazy know nothing about social justice movements, this sounds like projection...
Since you asked, I will tell you what I have done... Then you can share with us what activism you have done...
I have successfully worked to end logging in watersheds of three local municipalities... Canvassing three cities, speaking to thousands of families, generating LTE's and Letters to representatives...
As a Wobbly, I have successfully worked to unionize the food service workers at the local college...
I have done geurrilla street theatre at anti-war protests and the DNC...
I have worked on petitions and referendums in seven states, from Instant runoff voting to ballot access for 3rd party candidates...
I have volunteered my time & $$$ to teach hundreds of folks in north & south America how to build their own earthen ovens
I teach about permaculture, natural building, and appropriate technology...
I have made dozens of instructional videos about DIY natural building, and have made them available for free on-line...
I give lectures, teach workshops, design, consult, and do gardening, carpentry, masonry, and painting using local & salvaged materials...
I could go on, but you get the point...
I know I am being unnecessarily harsh on this guy...
I think he is good at what he does, and I respect him for making art and being active in his own way... he inspires a lot of people... However he did clambor into the spotlight willingly, and therefore chose to be a subject of both praise & critique...
Hey GoldenMeanie, its called Artistic license. All artists use things they see for inspiration. Fairey has done some pretty impressive posters and art to raise awareness to social movements. As a street artist he does not charge to place his images on telephone poles. He is clearly talented. Millions of photos have been taken of Obama. How many have you seen where his skin has blue and red tones? How often should we expect those of importance to sit for portrait paintings?
You would be hard pressed to find any early level high school or college studio or computer art class that does not have, as one of its projects, to reproduce or create a collage from found photos. Yes, in this country art courses teach students to take images from magazines and reproduce them! This was the norm when I was growing up and in art school, it is the norm today.
Most every business in the capitolist system is 'opportunistic'. Did Warhol pay royalites to Campbells? Not while he was alive that opportunistic bastard.
Campbell's soup is a product. Using the Campbell image in a picture is different then taking someone's own artistic photo creation and using it in a picture. The man is a hack.
He's also a cry baby. The police arrested him b/c he bragged about how he always gets away with graffiti. He not very smart.
It's steelgray again, typing away and posting. A perfect saying comes to mind when I read steelgray's writings: Just because you can post doesn't mean you should.
Hmmm,
Tell me why i should post my opinion and maybe i'll stop.
"Campbell's soup is a product." And Steelgray is a dope.
So Campbell's soup isn't a product?
Funny i just came across a can at the grocery store.....
I understand what artistic license is...
I guess using 95% of someone elses art and adding your own logo to it is art in the broadest sense of the word...
However I believe it lacks origionality and borders on appropriation of someone elses work...
This is not limited to images... Even appropriating someone elses writing or painting style is considered bad taste...
Just because I change a few words and add a few paragraphs to Moby Dick does not mean I can sign my name and call it art...
Same goes for music and visual and performance art...
Sampling a guitar riff is no big deal...
copying most of a song and adding an extra coda lacks creativity...
There is no harm with covering a song or adapting play...
until you put it on an album or Broadway for profit, then you pay royalties...
Artistic license is not a license to steal, but to inspire...
The dude needs to give credit to those who inspired him, otherwise he comes across as a hack...
Building upon centuries of cultural development, all art is derivative. The question is how much does it take until it's plagiarism? You can sing "Yesterday" as a sad but healing song, or you can introduce it with "This is a song about a young man who just got a letter from his draft board"; that uses the familiar bit of art to catapult into a radically different and poignant context; it strips all the healing from it and promises plenty of pain.
Where do you draw the line? A former associate maintains that "The artist knows where to draw the line". Here's where art and capitalism diverge.
Well whoever figured out this PR scheme sure did earn their commission on the project. Not since Maplethorp peed in a jar and put a crucifix upside down in the mess has so much been made over so little.
Poet
The photograph you are referring to I think is "Piss Christ" but it is not Maplethorp, it is Andres Serrano. There may be others, but this is the one that got the right so stirred up over the NEA.
It's spelled "Mapplethorpe" and he was a brilliant photographer.
Penelope--
My comment was not intended to be about art--it was about hype. This whole story has the odor of a professional wrestling interview prior to the match or the the "court reporter" on those endless judge shows on TV.
Poet
It was Andres Serrano who peed in the jar with the crucifix.
...authoritarians never have a defence against art except destroy it, discredit it, maintain an authority over it, which pleases the equally philistine masses who distrust what they do not understand. Ignorance is our enemy and there is no shortage of that in this poorly and narrowly educated country. They hate Shepard's message and are deeply jealous of his noteriety. He stands out as the scapegoat. Fascism is around the corner.
When he places his art on a private or publicly owned structure without permission, he is a vandal.
Since these vandals especially like defacing poor, struggling neighborhoods and the public spaces of struggling cities, they also are kicking these places when they are down. Or are these "artists" so narcissistic and self-absorbed that it never occurs to them that this is what they are doing?
---USAn---
I've seen some good graffiti art, on appropriate out of the way surfaces, like grown-over out of sight bridge abutment walls, or attractive work done with the building owners permission.
But the vast majority of these these graffiti-tagger punks seem to take a perverse pleasure in traveling to economically distressed cities like mine and kicking our communities when we are down with their ugly, idiotic vandalism. It costs my city hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to remove this vandalism and then it goes right back up again. They are common criminals who belong behind bars for a long time.
If these punks are such bold "artists" then why do we never see their vandalism in say, Times Square, the SF Marina district, tony Northwest DC neighborhoods, or suburban Malls and McMansons?
No, they go to broke cities like Pittsburgh, Flint, Youngstown, Buffalo to ply their "art", because they know these cities have no money for policing or graffiti removal.
They defaced nearly every vertical surface in some neighborhoods. They have defaced the graceful arches, towers and catenarys of our bridges high above our rivers. At one point I was very close waiting for one of them to show up on my street and shooting them in the legs with a 22 then shoving their spray paint can up their ass. And I will laugh out loud when one of them finally falls to their deaths while defacing a bridge.
I believe you have a penchant for ruining an otherwise respectable thought by going much too far....The penalty for graffitti is death?
"Every man's death diminishes me for I am a part of all mankind...."
"Most people would sooner die than think, in fact they do so." Bertrand Russell
Sorry, I was just engaging in a bit of hyperbole. Note that I said shoot in the legs with a .22 - not very likely to be fatal. If you lived in the neighborhood what was being trashed by these punks you would be pretty angry at them too.
I sispect most CD readers and posters are suburbanites, and probably wouldn't understand. They see the graffiti, (those ugly "tags" - not artistic murals - some of which have been themselves destroyed bt the tags), few houses in poor condition, then dismiss what are really still vibrant walkable communities (models for our post-car future) as "slums" and nervously head back out to Cranberry Township or wherever they came from.
--USAn---
Well.. I guess my copies of my Obama posters and the buttons went up in value !!
;>P
"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity" Horace Mann First President of Antioch College.
The only legitimate criteria for evaluating whether graffiti is wrong, let alone whether it should be illegal, is evaluating harm done to people. The article says he is accused of "victimizing new property." This is not possible, the idea that the property is the victim is a really telling look at our law in capitalist society. If a person blows up a building, we view it as "terrorism." Apparently, that building was deprived of a chance to live its life to the fullest, it never got married or had kids. And yes, I'm being very sarcastic.
political propaganda is still just propaganda, even if it reinforces your biases and makes you feel good.
Nazi's had their own "art" forms as did Stalinists. Makes for interesting poster sales on amazon and ebay, right next to the Uncle Sam coffee table and American flag coaster set.