Artist Shepard Fairey was arrested in Boston Friday night for allegedly defacing a Massachusetts Turnpike building with graffiti. Fairey was arrested by Boston Police upon arriving at the Institute of Contemporary Art where he was scheduled to DJ at the opening of his exhibition “Shepard Fairey: Supply and Demand“. Ironically Fairey currently has a banner hanging, with permission, on the side of Boston’s City Hall where he met with Mayor Thomas Menino Wednesday. I guess his subsequent arrest is what you call northern hospitality.

According to an ineloquently written police report, “Given his popularity, the suspect, prior to his exhibit, was interviewed by various media outlets in Boston and on a nationwide scale. In several of these interviews, suspect spoke openly about illegally tagging. Suspect further acknowledged or admitted to recent tagging in Boston.”

Anyone who knows anything about Shepard Fairey and his street art knows this case is a hard sell. For years now in this country and around the world there have been numerous, anonymous people that put up Fairey’s ubiquitous artwork. This is not a Do-It-Yourself thing for the artist and it hasn’t been for a long, long time. So how exactly the Boston police plan to make this case stick short of actual video footage I’m curious to see.

You can takepart in questioning consumption in our advertising driven culture like Sheaprd Fairey does by checking out Adbusters.

LINKS:

Boston Herald: Boston arrest adds to Shepard Fairey’s tale

Art Threat: Shepard Fairey Arrested

Reuters: Creator of iconic Obama portrait arrested