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Shepard Fairey arrested; did a revolutionary woman in red bail him out?

You can't make this stuff up: The Globe reports that Shepard Fairey, whose iconic posters are plastered everywhere these days, was arrested while about to enter the ICA, which is hosting an exhibit of his work. Those pesky outstanding warrants reared their ugly heads, although police were unable/unwilling to tell the paper just what they were for.

Ginny Delany, 27, a graduate student from Cambridge, said, "It makes him even more of a hero to me."

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Those pesky Globe editors removed from the story the sentence following that one. It should have read:

Ginny Delany, 27, a graduate student from Cambridge, said, "It makes him even more of a hero to me." As she spoke, various LEDs mounted in her clothing blinked on and off and a bell periodically chimed from her pocket.

When will they stop editing out the real news from their stories?

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I think they also left out the part about her kneading a ball of Silly Putty while she talked.

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I knew the hanging LED Andre the Giants (or is that Andres the Giant?) would bring about trouble.

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That would be the cops, not Fairey. The Globe now reports they grabbed him on tagging charges, as in the highly decorated railroad trestle next to the BU bridge. The could have done that in a different time and place, no need to disrupt the appearance with all the folk waiting for him. I think this falls in the because-we-can bucket. Boo.

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"The Globe now reports they grabbed him on tagging charges, as in the highly decorated railroad trestle next to the BU bridge."

He could have sandblasted away the graffiti on that trestle and given it a couple coats of paint.

The only time the hideous graffiti on the trestle isn't an eyesore as you look out on the river from the otherwise pleasant tree-lined path is when it's glaring into a camera:

http://www.neilvandyke.org/weblog/2002/04/#2002-04-21

I wonder whether the presumed students who deface the trestle and the supports for the BU Bridge there (and, say, repaint Smoot marks on the Harvard Bridge) ever have second thoughts as to whether they have a right to do that.

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They've survived long enough to achieve landmark status, basically. When the bridge underwent repairs awhile back, the MDC (see, it was a few years) let them stay.

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C'mon ... do you think that bridge would ever get painted - or the railway trestle - if the crews and taggers didn't do the job for us?

If they want it to be monochrome, maybe the state can actually maintain it or something.

Paint and labor, however, do cost some money.

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The state is rehabilitating the BU Bridge as we speak.

I suppose I can hold my moral indignation over vandalism until the repairs are done. :)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_University_Bri...

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/art...

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I cross the BU Bridge every day to get to and from work. I think there have been crews of 2-3 guys maybe once a week for all I have ever seen of them. (Usually, it's one guy fooling around with a coffee cup while the other two stand there and watch him.) I'll believe the state is actively rehabilitating that bridge when I see them reopen the fourth lane and undo all of the nonsense that happens every evening trying to get back from Cambridge into Boston. We're talking about Kenmore-esque repair times here...

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But if you come and to to work at conventional hours, those would be the times I wouldn't expect to see bridge workers.

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But the few times they've fully shut down a SECOND lane and forced all bridge traffic down to 1 lane each way were around 5-6P. Real American Genius!

I actually go by there pretty frequently (more than just for work) and they definitely don't work at night (plus, no lights). I never see them outside of 6a-2p (normal construction job hours usually) and often not even then.

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All of Shephard Fairey's work around town was set up by the ICA and agreed to by the property owners, with the exception of the stickers -- maybe.

Nobody else thinks this is a PR stunt?

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I doubt it is a PR stunt - you don't put yourself at the mercy of of a profession known for indifference to medical risks for a PR stunt.

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Since graffiti seems to be the about most serious crime one can commit in Boston, according to them...

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Im actually in shock that they caught him on actual graffiti charges. I was under the impression that he had turned legit and has been putting up his work, and was getting paid to do it, which I know he was for most of it. Its amazing that he would then turn around and illegal put things up on other peoples property again. I figured he had been having his legions put up stickers and doing all the guerilla work for him now so he could focus on the paid stuff, after all its fairly easy to get the supplies you need to do your own Fairey tagging. I always felt that he was partially responsible for the stickers his fans have been putting up all these years because they were following his example, but I would never advocate arresting him for what others did. I think its good that he did something illegal and he is paying for it.

On that note I cant wait to see the citys official reaction to this considering they were in small way involved in the musueum thing and were hosting Fairey images on their property...

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Menino is FURIOUS. The City orchestrated a photo op for him with Fairey, attended by the Globe, and now his police force arrested him without notice. Note complete absence of facts and details in today's Globe article. No one informed the brass this was going to happen.

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I understand that graffiti is a complex issue and I recognize the reasons for it being illegal. BUT, if there's one thing that Boston needs, it's a more open-minded perspective on modern art forms and on counter culture in general. The public way in which the cops arrested Fairey was clearly an attempt to send the message that Boston is not a city, like New York, in which creative, and sometimes subversive, types will be tolerated. Until people stop being such squares, this city will continue to be regarded by artists as provincial and close-minded...

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Actually, I wouldn't blame the Puritans for the 19th and 20th century provincialism that is still with us.

That said, Boston has a long and storied history inadvertently promoting and endorsing art by banning it, insuring nationwide success.

the phrase banned in Boston became famous because the long-established Watch and Ward Society of the so-called Hub of the Universe was forever getting the city censor to ban books from sale. Many publishers actively sought to have their books banned in Boston because they knew the label would increase their sales in the rest of the country..." Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins, 2d ed, 1988.

source

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In either case I'm tired of hearing about the "puritan roots"

those people have been dead for a very long time (in terms of human lifespans)

Can't we at least own the world we occupy, while we occupy it, rather than gluing our present and future to some "legacy" that doesn't even serve a useful purpose and generally just makes people sad?

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Thomas Garvey writes everybody wins, except maybe the public. Boston Police get to maintain their tough-on-street-artists reputation and Fairey gets to maintain his counterculture cred - and make people forget all the pesky questions about him rising to the top on the backs of other people's work:

... Of course in a meta sense, the event is itself a fascinating kind of cultural manifestation. It is required, in a way, for Shepard Fairey to be a "rebel," since his artwork is borrowed, and his only real cultural activity is its illegal distribution. Therefore the "art" only "exists" if he is arrested. That this maps neatly to a general cultural meme in which people feel entitled via the Internet to "appropriate" other people's property is simply the larger resonance of the "work." ...

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Boston Police get to maintain their tough-on-street-artists reputation? Where else have they cracked down on "street artists"? The Cartoon Network/Turner Broadcasting idiots were not "street artists". How would you feel if people were expressing themselves "artistically" on buildings on Bateman St.

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Sometimes this city seems just so full of stuck in the mud idiots. Between the police that arrest high-profile artists to neighborhood associations that fight anything that's not the status quo, people around here have their damn brains frozen.

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Chris Faraone puts together the Fairey arrest links page.

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