A little before 2AM last night, graffiti writer NAW decided to contribute to Shepard Fairey’s 99% done mural on Houston Street, but was abruptly thwarted by a security guard hired to babysit the wall. The vandal managed to escape by wiggling out of his shirt as the retired cop says he dialed 911 with one hand and tried to subdue him with the other. Behold the aftermath below.
Photos: ANIMALNewYork





























I would be happy to offer my services in distracting the security guard. Scuse me mister could you help me find hewsten street? I think you got a flat? I lost my dog etc.
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At least he smokes camels
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how can u hire security to watch a wall for you? THAT IS SO NOT 'STREEET'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THAT RETIRED COP IS A HERO…HE SHOULD HAVE TOSSED THAT PUNK A BEATING.
I agree with Shamus. These little twerps need to get whats coming to them. An old fashioned ass-whooping was in order here. Hail to this security officer!
StreetArt thats protected by an off duty police officer. How lame. That wall should be an homage to New York City from Obey by letting other artists collaborate with him on it. Graffiti is raw and alive. Nothing alive about a bunch of dumdums pasting the wall while security tries to protect them. lol.
tell this punk to show up again tonite and i'll personally serve him up a little justice of my own…
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A portion of gate crashers even suspect that was released by the British.
baby naw pms crew!
i agree with the krylon comment
the first of many, i’m sure.
I’d rather see Naw then obey any day.
obey is gay. that is that, i walked by it last night and was telling the homie that it needed to get dissed then we seen the rent a cop chilling in his truck parked right in front of it. they cant pay this dude to sit there for ever it will get dissed over and over till that fake st art is gone
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I HOPE MORE PEOPLE PAINT THIS WALL. IT WILL LOOK BETTER WITH SOME GRAFFITI OVER IT.
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when you have to hire a security guard to protect your "mural" i guess you've lost your street cred…nowhatimeanjellybean?
This is pretty bad even though I kinda understand what he was trying to do. He should've done it billboard style if he was trying to make it look like an ad (which is what it's commenting on and what it is). Making it look like wall art (even if it is a fake wall) is asking for trouble. Though I can't understand going over it. Nobody goes over cost or revs even though they were all big impact sticker campaigns looking for societal and governmental change. Fairey was successful with his hope poster but he doesn't get respect.
kingnaw dacrush
Naw Son!!!
FUCKIN' NAWSOME! Glad someone hit that bitch.
NASTY NAW
Regardless of how good a mural is, there is always someone who will tag it. Legitimacy does not belong exclusively to the one who most recently applied a layer of paint.
Shepard obviously expects his work to be tagged in the end, or else he would not display it in the street. Between the work of Shepard Fairey and the photo by Mannie Garcia, a great, iconic political artwork was created and I'm grateful to each of them for their work which contributed to a notable political success.
For that reason, I would appeal to those who would tag this mural to give it some time to be appreciated free and clear, and then to tag it artfully, beginning from the periphery and moving inward.
One more point to make – pre-composed and applied street art is not fake, it is just not the same as hand-applied, more spontaneous street art.
Those who are filled with passion about authenticity should consider that this particular kind of pre-composed political style is not competing with the hand-painted mural, neither by spray-paint nor by brush. Apples and oranges…
Fakery is in the apprehensions of those who desperately chase after authenticity. Don't concern yourself with authenticity and it won't become a problem for you.
Yo Balzac PUT YUR NOSE BACK IN THE DICKTIONARY AND SHUT THE FUKC UP
That's pretty funny calling NAW a vandal like it's a bad thing, like Obey isn't responsible for a whole lot of vandalism.
From a practical point of view – if i was working on a piece in a public space and my artwork was as sought after as obey's – i'd try and guard it at least untill i was finished working on it, even if it was to stop people peeling of the fresh paste up to sell on ebay.
Grafitti & Street art is allways going to be worthy. Going over someones piece with another piece is always valid, even if it isn't as good.
Tagging is just tagging – it's like pissing on your territory – tagging is for cretins
That stupid scribble isn't art, it's vandalism. It's more a statement about how clever the fool thinks he is than a real artistic statement. These guys are dog poo on the soles of real artists.
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NAW is a fucking political statement u fucking retards. Get with it… viva la revolution…
I think it's interesting that OsGemeos mural went untouched with zero security for an entire year and within 24hrs Shepard Fairey's mural gets tagged up. Personally, I liked the OsGemeos piece better, but this is neither here nor there.
I have no beef against Shep, I think he's done an amazing job moving from wheat pasting Andre The Giant all over the place to owning a graphic design company and being featured in galleries. I think a lot of people hate on him for making something of himself. It's crab-in-the-bucket syndrome. This is a guy who came up doing his art on city streets, getting his ass whipped by cops, locked up, and now he's welcomed back with open arms to put up a major piece on Houston Street.
NAW, or whoever this guy is, has zero (and I mean fucking zero) artistic talent and if any of his boys are reading this you should encourage him to go to class.
SHEPARD FAIREY or whoever commissioned this piece SHOULD BE PAYING FOR NAWS BAIL, COURT COSTS, AND SOMETHIN EXTRA FOR BEING RESPONSIBLE FOR him getting popped doin the do. if i were mr. fairey i would be ashamed to be implicated in such a ridiculous situation. a writer getting nabbed up by another "writer's" square paid security. crazy. peace from the west coast-naw and everyone else bangin their shit keep it up
oh and by the way am i the only one who thinks that naws work looks good on shep's installation? it needs layers and layers if u ask me… and ill be out east in a couple months- u think id think twice about goin over shep's work- u think any bomber would?
lol i didnt read the article haaa im on that white widow u know… well lucky shep dont have to deal with all that guilt haha. mr. fairey is a very talented artist, but any 1 of us would go over that wall. if u dont bomb u shouldnt be commenting on this article. we dont care wat squares have to say. haaa rep yourselfff
send marty to do it!
agreed huh, someone get smart crew on this shit pronto!
this is not street art, it's a wall owned by a gallery. anyone who paints over it is just a toy looking for his 20 minutes. sometimes the highschool dropout level of intelligence really shows through in these graffiti fucktards.
If you go over an anti government poster does that make you pro government?.. and if you then get your krylons taken does that mean you're donating them to the street?
LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON LAYERS ON the obey wall
If all the people can't see it as a political statement, it's an amateur's scrawl. If you want real, make it real! Vandalism is a political statement too. A stupid one.
You anti-establishment posers out there make me sick. Its called being a hater. I don't even know who's art this is, but guess what shitbirds? It aint yours! But the simple fact is that your trash wasn't good enuff to get a spread like that. So get over it, or better yet go back and try to step to that security officer, who will pummel your pathetic ass 7 layers beneath the earth, krylon and all.
if all "street cred" means is defacing a real artist's work, it ain't worth shit. it's not political. it's not cultural. hell, it's not even literate. it's just visual garbage. screw 911. body slam the fool.
first of all never place revs and cost in the same category at OGAY.
revs went in illegally and killed shit efficiently and thoroughly.
and naw is no little twirp. hes been all city.
at least he has the balls to rock over a real toy in disguise, (OGAY).
like homie said, there is nothing live about pasting stickers while grandpa cops guarding over it.
in the hood, that shit doesnt get a pass.
its all about bombing hard – illegally.
OGAY couldve been cool if he didnt front like a bomber. youre not a bomber man, youre a street artist, and youve gone over heads before with your pasty bullshit.
dont catch feelings and turn into a soft bitch when someone goes over your shit in the streets.
grab your balls and get it together, youre a mess.
(by the way, constructively criticism, youre blog is weak.
step your game up and talk about real shit that YOU know about. not made up assumptions about other peoples lives (OBAMA).)
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SHEPARD FAIREY IS DOING A CO-BRAND WITH TARGET. HE'S SLIPPING IN THE TARGET AD TO HELP START THE BUZZ FOR WHEN HIS CO-BRAND OFFICIALLY LAUNCHES.
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obey, youre no better than a corporate fuck as far as im concerned.
might as well be an absolut vodka billboard ad in soho.
that wall has history for many, many years – and youre making it look bad as well as yourself. why do you think people are hating on it? throwing eggs, paint, stickers, tags, bb guns , all types of shit, at it?
theres mad flicks to show all of the walls real stages back in the day.
none of it ever involved corporate companies.
they were straight art. burners, tags, abstract, characters – all the pure forms – and it was respected. if someone banged over you it was handled in the streets – not the law.
obviously, you have respect issues if youre gonna hire a degenerate to watch over it. this whole 'political' statement you are trying to pop off with is just getting stomped because youre not real. youre not fighting for what you truly believe in and most importantly something you ever lived through. youre life is based on other peoples experiences. your art is not from the heart and you don't speak about shit thats real to you. you, hiring a dickhead to bag someone who writes on your shit is the same as snitching. youre basically getting another person, who's probably 10 times realer than you, arrested. back to respect issues, if you had respect you wouldnt need to hire someone to watch over your shit. and youre composition, from an artists perspective, is pretty off. you need to step it up because its not working out for you at this time.
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IMa smack the shit out of shepard fairey when i see him… i know you live in boston nigga, wait till i catch you, thats word to my eyes b.
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obey is the farthest thing from ''street art''.
hes a sell out , to say hes the reason anyone cares about this shit just displays your lack of knowledge of history. do your homework and save sounding like a dumb dick.
some real names for you to do your homework on, pussy..
revs
vfr
phase2
joz
easy
stak
ghost
tyke
louie167
oe
espo
rd
audie
obey will never be in the same category, he will always be below.
Yo yo yo, we got some mad taggers here. There’s a food chain fools, and some poser wants to make a name for himself by hopping on someone else’s tail, call him what he is. A poser. Simple as that.
Do your thing, don’t hate on someone else’s by bombing it. Fact is, Shep was there 20 years before naw, and will be here 50 years later.
And Obey was the only reason anybody gives a shit about street art anyway, so don’t hate him, hate yourself for not having any talent.
Owning a kazoo don't make you a musician.
And owning a hoodie and a can of rusto don't make you an artist.
Obey isn't street art? Now? Or 20 years ago when he was banging it out all over the world?
Was Michelangelo a sell-out because he got paid to paint the Sistine Chapel?
Try doing some of your own homework before you open your stupid fucking mouth. This scene started well before you, and will be here long after you're gone. Pull up your pants, wipe the snot from your nose and deal with it.
again, youre placing fairy wit michaelangelo – not a good look.
tell you what, get a haircut, cop a shave and smoke this joint – its time to regroup , youre all over the place.
ive been in this game for years..
fairy is a cop out. real niggas know. his so called work isnt even original – just a copy – but came out sloppy.
bottom line is, youre salty because your rash buddy fairy gets no respect – except from corporate yuppies sons and people-wth-no-knowledge. youre probably a pussy yuppy sipping his hot coffee in a gay office. you have no idea what this game is about, take a squat, bitch, and learn. you never got dirty in the tunnels or scaled death spots. youre just a critic nigga and obey is a fraudulent corporate company. dont get it twisted.
Bottom line is this – you've no talent, so you're jealous of anyone that has. Go ahead and try and deny that you wouldn't give everything you have to be Fairey. Everything.
Fairey gets no respect? From who? You? A 20-year old tator-tot looking for a handout? And I don't even know Fairey, but jealousy I can spot a mile away. Envy, baby. Pure envy. Must be eating you up inside.
Smoke that, if you can handle it.
you speak as if you know me but you dont dickdick.
i put in nuff work.
i know enough to say fairy is a fraud. and i know youre sourpuss inside because your sex partner gets no respect. i forgive you little man. i also know youre a yuppy who would get robbed in my hood on the regular. thats why you gotta tuck your tail when you walk through my part of town – or go back to rye or niagra falls nigga. be easy my dula, youre looking real salty right now, and your true emotions shine brighter than ever. i know you feel safe in your office with your hot cup-o-noodles and ipod feeling mighty. but youre looking from the outside in.
you never put in work, remember, youre just a critic. if it takes you a hard time to understand it then its not for you. time to pursue a new interest, worm. youre circle of friends are trendy bullshit artists. do your homework and get back to the roots. pop a squat on that one.
Wrong wrong wrong. Dream your little dreams hoodie. This ain't '77, and you a nobody with nothing shaking your tiny fist at the sky. I don't know where you live, but I bet it takes you 45 minutes to get to Manhattan so you can sneer at the tourists, and you make the trip every day so you can try and get FAMOUS, just like old Shep, whom you love/hate.
People from all over this town making it big every day. It's just not gonna be you, not oozing envy and fear like you do. Sellout? In a second, if you had anything worth selling. You're a tiny tagger, working up from fries hoping to get to shakes. Here's a clue: you're not gonna make it.
So dream your little dreams hoodie, NYC forgot about you 5 minutes ago.
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looks like i touched that sensitive button..
time to grab your balls and grow some knuckle hair my g string, youre looking extra gooey right now
no respect to fairy got you stressed like a bitch
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i'm sure Jeffrey Deitch , not shepard, hired the security gaurd
the mural was part of the last show in his SOHO gallery before he moved to LA
where he will be Director at MOCA
gallerists prob don't sweat being called sellouts, selling is one of their definitive qualities
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