Shepard Fairey Condones Destruction of Art
Shepard Fairey, the so-called “street artist,” has told the LA Times that he condones the recent destruction of the mural at LA MoCA.
“The situation is unfortunate but I understand MOCA’s decision,” Fairey told the LA Times.
Fairey, the same artist that deemed it unnecessary to contact The Associated Press and ask for a license to use their image of Barack Obama but allegedly found it proper to destroy and fabricate evidence, believes that this unfortunate situation could have been “avoided altogether with better communication[.]”
Isn’t this what curators do, communicate with artists regarding their proposals, sketches, models, and installations for upcoming shows, especially when they are of this magnitude and expense to the public? Have they stopped teaching this in curatorial schools?
Apparently Fairey, the same artist that wails the censorship war-cry over his recent litigation with The Associated Press while simultaneously threatening other artists who use his own appropriated works, believes that museums are entitled to censor an artist’s work because — showing a lucid show of intellect he tells us– museum shows are not the same as street art.
“This is a complex situation that could have been avoided altogether with better communication,” Shepard Fairey told the LA Times in an e-mailed statement. “I’m not a fan of censorship but that is why I, and many of the other artists of the show, chose to engage in street art for its democracy and lack of bureaucracy. … However, a museum is a different context with different concerns.”
And what concerns are those? It’s more than ironic that at the same time that The Warhol Foundation aggressively threatens The National Portrait Gallery for its withdrawal of David Wojnarowicz’s video, not much of a burp is made at Jeffrey Deitch’s outright destruction of an artist’s painting.
(A) Politics (B) Selective activism (C) Hypocrisy (D) All of the above
All is not lost. At least one street-artist is seriously concerned about MoCA’s and Deitch’s actions.
“This is making me worried that maybe they don’t know how to manage a show. This is the last thing I would have expected for them to do[,]” Alex Poli Jr. told the LA Times.
Via The LA Times.