Shepard Fairey : Too "Street" For Corporate, Too Corporate For The Street (PHOTOS)
Posted: 07/ 4/11 12:20 AM ET

Shepard Fairey has grown up before the eyes of fans, peers and would be competitors. Undaunted by criticism he gets from both sides of his chosen vocation as a globally-known street artist, the man still has a great deal to say. His art has made its way into homes, museums, wardrobes and book collections in addition to all the walls--legal and illegal--and he pays the price and gains the benefit of all of it. A living conundrum, he embodies the sharp tongued anti-establishment, anti-corporate, anti-police state ethos of his formative years, while gradually beginning to resemble the middle-aged dad who so much of the punk generation rebelled against.

He raises money for individuals and organizations advocating for the disempowered or victimized, yet street art and graffiti kids who feel marginalized in their lives call him a sellout for making commercial work. Without the credibility of major shows, arts institutions, and collectors he could never afford to employ people who help him. Yet keeping it clean and doing legal walls costs him "street cred." How exactly does one become an authority on questioning authority? You try this balancing act, and see how far you get without a scrape or two.

4 July 2011 Last updated at 10:55 ET
From the BBC

Who, What, Why: How do you graffiti-proof public art?

Spray can Graffiti may be art to some, but it is seen as a nuisance by others
Continue reading the main story

A landmark sculpture project is at risk because of spiralling costs - including the budget for keeping it graffiti-free. How do you protect public artworks from vandals?

It was meant to be a towering monument - a 50m (164ft) white horse in the fields of Kent greeting Eurostar passengers to England. But now sculptor Mark Wallinger's so-called "Angel of the South" project is at risk because of rising costs.

The price tag for the Ebbsfleet Landmark Project (ELP) has gone up from £2m to £12m, according to reports, with the budget for removing graffiti over 80 years part of the revised bill.

A Movement Defaced: Queer Street Art Fights for Legitimacy
By Jonathan Curiel
published: June 15, 2011
Jonathan Curiel on A Movement Defaced: Queer Street Art Fights for Legitmacy

Cover photo by Michael Cuffe/Warholian.

Inside his art studio in San Francisco's Bayview District, Jeremy Novy surrounds himself with the stencilwork that has burnished his reputation as a street artist of note. Of course, the koi are there. Even people who don't know his name know his aquatic vertebrates — colorful creatures that can be found on sidewalks across San Francisco, most prominently at Market and Laguna streets, where scores of the fish swirl outside the Orbit Room. In Novy's studio, though, the animals are crowded out by representations of people. Men, mostly. Queer men like the drag queen with the yellow beehive and bright red panties, and the young wrestlers grabbing each other's flesh. Then there's the stencil of a big pink erect phallus.

"That's my cock," Novy says matter-of-factly.

Mural artist Joel Richardson was paid $2,000 by the city to do a mural on a city-owned wall on Dupont just west of Lansdowne. On Tuesday, somebody -- apparently the city -- painted over it, likely as part of Rob Ford's graffiti eradication campaign.

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Artist Joel Richardson says the city has painted over a popular Dupont St. mural that it paid him $2,000 to create, an apparent misfire in Mayor Rob Ford’s war on graffiti.

Hong Kong Graffiti Challenges Chinese Artist's Arrest

by Louisa Lim

May 4, 2011 (from NPR)

Tangerine

Hong Kong police are investigating criminal damage charges against artist Tangerine for graffiti of detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, which could carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in jail.

This graffiti, appearing all over Hong Kong, has become a political statement, more than a month after the world-famous artist was detained by the authorities at Beijing airport. The campaign could yet lead to a jail term for the young graffiti artist responsible. And that fact has led to fears about the erosion of Hong Kong's distinct freedoms, which are a legacy of its colonial past under the British.

"Art in the Streets" Brings Fire to MOCA

The show is an audacious multi-platform and colorful endeavor; part history lesson and part theme park bringing about 50 years of graffiti and street art history, it's influences and influencers, under one roof. Then there is the stuff outside. Engaging and educational, "Art in the Streets" makes sure visitors have the opportunity to learn how certain tributaries lead to this one river of swirling urban goo, mapping connections between cultural movements, communities and relationships
within it. When it does this, the museum system effectively differentiates its value apart from a mere gallery show.

If You Take Street Art Off the Street, Is It Still Art?

Fans Cut Mural Linked to Banksy From Wall; One Man's Rescue, Another's Heist

By MATTHEW DOLAN

 WSJ link

DETROIT—Secured inside a wooden crate and locked in a warehouse is a painting that could cement this city's reputation as a showcase for avant-garde art. Or as a wasteland waiting to be picked apart.

It's a stenciled image on a 7-foot-by-7-foot slab of cinder-block wall, showing a small boy holding a can and paintbrush.

Next to the boy are the words: "I remember when all this was trees."

The painting came from the grounds of the old Packard auto plant, one of the city's infamous industrial ruins. And it is believed to be the work of the mysterious street artist Banksy, whose graffiti-like renderings adorn the lanes of London and the walls of the West Bank. His ironic urban images, or "tags," have produced world-wide fame and led him to create an Oscar-nominated documentary.

The art of clearing taggers' work in San Francisco

Edward Guthmann, Special to The Chronicle

Monday, February 21, 2011

Nobody knows more about graffiti than Joe Padilla. The paint-shop supervisor for the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department, Padilla oversees graffiti removal for all of the city's 220 parks.

A San Francisco native, Padilla, 50, was baptized at Mission Dolores and grew up at 15th and Noe streets. He lives in Richmond with his wife of 24 years, Silvana, and has three children and three granddaughters.

This shop spends $280,000 a year on graffiti abatement alone. People tag retaining walls, benches, sidewalks, pathways, curbs, signs, light poles, picnic tables, pump houses, irrigation boxes. Trees get tagged. Yes, we faux-finish a lot of trees.

We're damn good at graffiti removal. Mayor Newsom made an executive order about four, five years ago, saying all departments must deal with graffiti within 48 hours of it being reported. I have eight guys on my crew, and we average about 80 percent for removing graffiti within two days.

Jaime Rojo & Steven Harrington

S.F. artist Jeremy Novy thrives in outdoor gallery

Meredith May, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, November 13, 2010

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Jeremy Novy is walking South of Market, deciphering his own hieroglyphics.

"That's two men kissing," he said, pointing to a stencil of two sets of boots facing each other on the sidewalk.

On the side of an abandoned ice machine business, a life-size, shirtless man in a cowboy hat leans seductively. "That's an iconic gay image," Novy said. "Like a two-step guy. Or a Marlboro man."

Scribbling in a language of doodles, stencils and graffiti, Novy uses underground street art to honor San Francisco's gay history. Much as Keith Haring's anonymous chalk drawings in the New York subways drew attention to gay culture in the 1980s, Novy is emerging as San Francisco's street whisperer.