which even he admits was illegal.

The linked article says that he couldn't be reached for comment.

Does he "admit" this somewhere else?

I think it was when the warrant was first issued, and there was a thread about it here.

I thought the failure of capitalism already did that.

Art is great but do not damage other peoples property. He should pay for the repairs and be free to go.

worth thousands more than the wall itself.

Either way, the artist's fame expands when the establishment lashes out at art-based activism. Thanks, for the great publicity, Mr. Clueless Detroit Property Owner!

Never mind. The concept that this sort of property "destruction" is a vicious crime which must be stamped out by severe penalties seems to be universal in the US, even among so-called liberals.

I never win this argument. Go in peace, capitalism. You are safe from an art radical now.

for defacing or damaging others property. I am sure you are also fine with this outstanding individual and her "art" in national parks.

http://www.modernhiker.com/2014/10/21/instagram-artist-defaces-national-parks/

is outraged, OUTRAGED that his valuable slum property needs to be painted over is another matter entirely.

Lets see this slum he painted

He might have defaced the property of someone who scrimped and saved to buy a building, and they're fixing it up--and now they have to scrape off some garbage "art" they didn't ask for and don't want.

Sheesh. Assumptions.

I suppose you are also outraged at the cave paintings the ancients drew.

Defacing public lands is different than putting up posters. The woman with the marker should be charged. I don't know about Fairey, since I'm too lazy to google him and find out what he did. Well, I will. Be right back. OK, I figured it out. He tagged some buildings in Detroit, and they have been arresting people who do that. The city is discussing with Fairey when he will return and face charges, so it doesn't seem to be a big deal. The damage to the buildings can be repaired. The damage to the rock formations cannot.

I'm not much of an artist, but I can draw a stick figure.

that National Park artist!! We'll bring a few dozen cans of spray paint and "improve" the property!!!

Why do people think that their "art" trumps people's rights to have their personal property left unmolested? The .... HUBRIS!!!

I think his attitude is both pompous and disrespectful:
http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2015/06/24/shepard-fairey-arrest-warrant-detroit-police/29239929/

And defying ridiculous corporate overreach by being naughty is part of the work.They knew that!

Like I said, when Detroit arrests him after inviting him, the irony is just too sweet. People will be laughing at Detroit's lack of grace in re this incident for decades as they read about the achievements of Fairey and others in art history texts of the future.

I'm guessing you didn't.

They didn't invite him to deface private property.

SMH.

on a building they own. They were paying him a massive fee to do so. Not 'Detroit' but some private business, not public buildings but private building.

Fairey is worth many millions of dollars, and when he glues up posters those are ads for his work, which is for sale online, it is self promotion by a rich guy.

Which other wealthy business people do you think should be allowed to glue up ads where they wish? 'But he is an artist' you might say. So are all those musicians with product to market. Should they also be able to just glue it up? No matter how rich they are? No matter how many other outlets for self expression and promotion are available to them?

It's not so bad when he paints unasked, but the pasting of mass run posters is in my view just advertising for himself. Here's his store....
http://store.obeygiant.com/collections/prints

He even said he would. Detroit as well as the corporate entity knew he was coming, they kew what was coming. Graffiti artists are political activists with a message about gentrification. Not tame sign painters.

But I always lose this argument. Property is more important than people in the US. That is the bottom line for most Americans. They don't get it.

And it doesn't include a splash of paint or a poster. I had nothing but the clothes on my back and the shoes on my feet and all my treasures of a lifetime turned to ashes and poison in just a hour.

And as an artist and art critic, I would be very interested in what your crew would say about me and my poor house which is under an asbestos tent right now. Let's discuss it further if you are really interested and not just being cruel.

If you were Shepard Fairy or Banksy, I would feel quite privileged to have your work on my property.

treasure, and vice versa. You are insisting that your view of "art" prevails, and because YOU like it, everyone else must, and that they should be "privileged" to have someone put their shit, unbidden, unasked for, and unwanted, on their property. There are people in this world who don't care for that sort of thing, who don't share your tastes, and who don't want to have to repair messes that others make in the name of "art."

While it's a shame that your house burned down, that's not the point, here. You're not living in a dumpster, how about we come by and spray paint the front door of the abode you're occupying right now? Maybe you'd be happy if some budding artist "improved" your car without your permission, hmmm? Maybe we can get someone imitating that coke addicted Thomas Kinkaid, "painter of light" to put a little gnome village on your car door, or something? Or how about some Hello Kitty art or Pokemon? Or Disney cartoons? Hey, it's "art" to someone!!

It's just not "cool" to disrespect people, or people's "stuff." It's incredibly selfish, thoughtless, and immature. Dogs piss on trees--grown people don't. If you've been invited and given permission, fine. Go to town! If you haven't, don't be rude.

What goes around, comes around. Someone should visit Mr. Fairey's home and put something like this on HIS front door, and see how he likes it:




But....but....it's ART, man!! Don't harsh my creative spirit with your 'tude, man!!!

I would never wish evil on anyone else. No matter how much I disagree with them.

You pretty much trashed me for not liking the art YOU like, and you then tried to put me down for the "crime" of advocating respect for the property of others with some lame, vague BS about people and property.

When I suggested that the art that others like be imposed on YOU, like you are advocating Fairey's art be imposed on others, you resorted to flinging, at me, personal characterizations of "angry" and "wishing evil." You're off by a mile--I find your double-talk amusing in the extreme. It's ok for DETROIT, but don't come at meeeeee with that 'evil' art!

Check your mirror, there! You want respect for your personal property, you want integrity of your own assets, you need to give that very same respect to others--it's that pesky little social contract thing we have working ....

I'm so glad they read the thread and saw through the accusations made against me.

I do think it is strange that it's OK for SHEPARD FAIREY to "threaten" to go all over Detroit and paint on complete strangers' walls, and that's "art," where "people" are more important than "property,".... but if anyone else says the exact same thing....well, cognitive dissonance!

v a n d a l.

It's not shocking to see how the United States ended up incarcerating more people than any other nation, including North Korea.

Even if one judges it nothing but vandalism and graffiti, how much time and money are the taxpayers of TWO different states shelling out to prosecute some rich, pretentious asshole's spray paint hobby?

It's obnoxious, annoying, and a hassle, but is it really worth all of the legal time and attention?

Also, $9000 worth of damage? Bullshit. Was he drawing dicks on original Warhols? Because A) I can buy two original Warhols a mile down the road from my house for $9000, and B) probably nobody would notice if there were dicks added. Hell, at the same gallery I've seen hand drawn sketches from Dali and Chagall for less than nine grand.

He'll pay a fine, and he'll hopefully learn that not everyone thinks his art is art--some think it's crap spray painting, aka vandalism.

One man's trash is another man's treasure...and vice versa.

Just because a city is poor, and has a lousy tax base, and is recovering from economic ruin, doesn't mean that the people in that city don't have rights. "Oh well, this is a crappy part of town, no one will care if I deface this wall...." Maybe the property owner might take issue.

I don't know what he defaced, but I do know that it's not easy to get paint off brick. It's probably not cheap, either, if there's enough of it....

It also cost ~$100 to hold him for the day. That doesn't include the cost in time used by the courts, the police, or airport security. That adds up, and, more importantly, helps clog up the system, which results in hundreds of thousands of Americans pleading guilty every year to crimes they didn't commit or the state can't prove we're committed just because they don't want to be in jail for eighteen months. Hundreds of thousands of people screwed over, and hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars wasted on bullshit like petty vandalism or stealing socks or being black.

Vanfalism is obnoxious and technically criminal, as well as a pain in the ass to clean up, but in the end he spray painted on a wall, just like people do in every single city on Earth.

This law and order attitude is why we incarcerate more people than any other country on Earth -- a rate that includes jail.

sandwich and few watts of electric energy to light his cell cost that much? Everyone involved in his arrest was collecting a salary anyway. They don't hire spare people for the occasion. He probably paid court costs to more than cover his little adventure with the "hard" life in the holding cell. Now he'll need a jailhouse tattoo!

He knew he'd be on his way soon enough. And it's unlikely in the extreme that he goes to jail for this.

He will pay a fine and restitution, and the City of Detroit will have benefitted from an "anti-vandalism" advertising campaign starring Shepard Fairey that they would have had to pay a quarter million bucks or more to approximate, without getting one tenth of the saturation.

It's a win-win.

The City of Detroit lets people know they mean business, and hopefully they assess him a nice, hefty fine that can be put towards helping some of the worst off in that failed city; Shepard Fairey can play the ersatz-Banksy counterculture/Fight-The-Power activist, and maybe start to see the pesky copyright violation-plagiarism-evidence destruction embarrassment from that HOPE poster mess recede just a little bit in his rear view mirror.

This is a "spell my name right" moment for Fairey. He's not a victim, here.

do anything that's tied into 'homeland security.

start a new bank account, open a new cell phone account, get a drivers license renewed, an apartment lease, get a mortgage, get a plane ticket, even domestic travel, register your car or buy insurance. start a new utility for water, electric, gas.

Everything is tied into our trillion dollar homeland security.

the 'for profit' part of that system will earn quite a few thousands off that 10 year old warrant and make the mans life miserable. probably a felony and he may rot in some jail for 20 years.

if he can write them off on his taxes...

or something.

They don't have a very good tax base, so prosecuting people they've identified who swan in from out of town, plaster crap all over their city, and then leave after making a mess is a way of bringing in some income to improve the place.

would seem appropriate to me. Maybe some community service if he ever goes back to Detroit...

and continue the business without a finding.

He's probably thrilled--Google his name--he's all OVER the news media--he got saturation he couldn't have gotten with ten quirky shows in ten major cities around the globe.

He could not have bought this kind of publicity for a quarter million dollars, never mind a paltry nine grand or even double that.

His counter-culture cred has been solidified, while his plagiarist-who-copied-an-AP-photo (and lied about it) persona is receding into the mists of time gone by. This is a "push the reset button" moment for him, and I'll bet, like a Mac D customer, he's "lovin' it!"

But honestly the whole Detroit "residency" thing seemed a little too much like an attempt to be Banksy, which he isn't.

in a limited way. It's all very similar, though.

He's not Banksy, indeed--you're right about that. Banksy's greatest asset is, aside from obvious talent, the capacity for absolute surprise. Also, I think Banksy is a bit more careful about copyright misappropriation.

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