Today in Boston, artist Shepard Fairey plead guilty to vandalism charges: three misdemeanors from 2000 and January. As part of a plea deal, the prolific public artist must pay $2000 to a local graffiti clean-up group and serve two years probation. During that time he can’t possess posters, paint, paste, stickers or other tools of the trade unless he is working on a permission piece. But as Fairey noted, “Fortunately, I’m at a place in my career where I can get sanctioned spaces,†like billboards, to continue flaunting his art in Boston.
Another stipulation of the sentencing: Fairey must tell Boston officials when he’s visiting. But with an expensive closing party for his ICA exhibition, and the whole show moving to Pittsburgh’s Warhol Museum shortly, any trips back to the “city of culturally clueless Puritans” will likely be infrequent or never.
Could we pay them $3000 to not “clean up” his public work?
I'd like to see the kind of art these people have up in their houses.
I'll bet they are a bunch of Thomas Kinkade fans. *shudder*