Supertouch’s own SHEPARD FAIREY was arrested for alleged vandalism claims while attempting to enter the grand public opening of his first museum solo show at the INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART/BOSTON last nite. Currently he’s out on bail and awaiting a court appearance in Boston on Monday:

“A street artist famous for his red, white and blue “Hope” posters of President Obama was arrested in Boston, where he was wanted on warrants for tagging property with graffiti.

Shepard Fairey, 38, was arrested Friday night on his way to the Institute of Contemporary Art. Fairey was scheduled to deejay a kickoff event at the museum for his first-ever solo exhibition, called “Supply and Demand.”

Two warrants were issued for Fairey on Jan. 24 after police determined he’d tagged property in two locations with graffiti based on the Andre the Giant street art campaign from his early career, Boston Police Officer James Kenneally said Saturday.

Fairey, of Los Angeles, is scheduled to be arraigned on the misdemeanor charges Monday in Brighton District Court, said Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk District Attorney. Wark said Fairey would also be arraigned on a default warrant related to a separate graffiti case in the Roxbury section of Boston.

Fairey has spent the last two weeks in the Boston area installing the ICA exhibit, giving public talks and creating outdoor art, including a 20-by-50 foot banner on the side of City Hall, according to a statement issued Saturday by the ICA.

The museum described the reason for Fairey’s arrest as “his efforts posting his art in various areas around the city.”

“We believe Shepard Fairey has made an important contribution in the history of art and to popular thinking about art and its role in society,” the statement said. “We are enthusiastic to be working with him and are pleased to be showing the first museum retrospective of his work.”

The museum said Fairey was released a few hours after his arrest, but that could not immediately be confirmed by authorities. A California lawyer who has represented Fairey in the copyright case didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the arrest.” Click HERE to continue reading…

Ron English brings “Abraham Obama” to Hollywood, and the cold heart of Seattle…

Supertouch’s own RON ENGLISH has been a very busy man in LA and Seattle this week following his stop in DC to celebrate BARACK OBAMA’s inauguration on Tuesday. Located at the corner of Pico & Fairfax in Hollywood, this newly “liberated” billboard features Ron’s iconic “Abraham Obama” hybrid portrait created for the Big O’s presidential campaign last year. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

Barack Obama does, in fact, have a posse, it seems…

We never thought it would come to this, but it seems BARACK OBAMA’s street team has confronted UK street art phenom BANKSY head-on in a battle for the streets of NEW ORLEANS where the Bristol Bad Boy recently made a well-publicized art run. You’re up, Banks…

Banksy’s post-Katrina, pre-Obama original…

After buying a new Banksy piece, Tim Biskup found time to make nice with the ladies…

The art “Extravaganza” event that was originally scheduled to take place at the now infamous LAZARIDES GALLERY in London last week during the throes of the FRIEZE ART FAIR was instead turned into the “Shut Down Show” after the local authorities canned STEVE LAZARIDES‘ original setup over gambling concerns. Turns out Laz’s grand plan to sell 250 tickets at £5,000 GBP each for the event—which guaranteed every participant a 1-in-10 chance of winning an original piece of art from the gallerist’s stable of artists including Miranda Donovan and Faile and included a raffle of an original BANKSY oil painting valued at more than £300,000 GBP—looked more like a mini casino operation to the gambling commission than a proper art show. Instead, Lazarides stepped to the plate and converted the original fete into an equally impressive group show of art by ANTHONY MICALLEF, INVADER, PAUL INSECT, and JONATHAN YEO, to name a few, that also included several vintage works by Banksy, including the “corrupted” oil painting that was to serve as the centerpiece of the raffle. While everyone who bought tickets for the original party was given a full refund and a piece of free artwork for their trouble, the new show did include a “Gnome Bowling” game whereby anyone knocking down a set of gnome bowling pins received a piece of free art, a less-than-subtle F.U. to the gambling commission if there ever was one. Of course, our man TIM BISKUP was on the scene to take in the spread, pick up on the ladies, and even DJ’d the afterparty side-by-side with Supertouch homie ACYDE at SoHo HOUSE where show attendees like DENNIS HOPPER tore it up late into the foggy eve. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

Donny Miller’s come a long way from his days pumping gas to the newly-crowned minister of propaganda for the oil industry. Only in America…

A lot of wind has blown out of the current president and the two battling candidates about the state of the financial world we’re all wallowing in. Meanwhile, Supertouch’s own DONNY MILLER has been taking it upon himself to address our problem with fossil fuels with his “Gas Stations: Truth in Advertising” campaign. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

A cosmetically-inclined caged bunny self-tests. Outside, Banksy sits and awaits his first customer of the day…

Street art aficionados and cynical phenomenologists (we don’t know any of those) have been long awaiting SIR BANKSY’s official New York debut but surely even the most imaginative punter couldn’t have guessed that the Bristol Bad Boy’s first show in the Apple would come in the form of a mock pet store with nothing inside for sale. That’s exactly what the “street art” king’s adoring public got, however, when the doors to “The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill” opened at 89 7th Avenue (between Bleeker and West 4th) last Thursday, October 9th, revealing what seemed from the outside to be a small West Village pet shop stocked not with purring kittens and wiggly puppies, but a more sinister menagerie. Inside, animatronic chicken nuggets, porno watching monkeys, coexisted alongside ageing tweety birds, swimming fish sticks, and suggestively writing caged hot dogs, in what can only be described as an entirely unique visual critique of the state of animal husbandry in the modern world. In the words of Banksy himself, “New Yorkers don’t care about art, they care about pets. So I’m exhibiting them instead. I wanted to make art that questioned our relationship with animals and the ethics and sustainability of factory farming, but it ended up as chicken nuggets singing. I took all the money I made exploiting an animal in my last show and used it to fund a new show about the exploitation of animals. If its art and you can see it from the street, I guess it could still be considered street art.” The show is open for viewing from 10am—12am daily and remains on view until Halloween. Click HERE to read the NY Times review of the show. Meanwhile, HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »

The rats in NYC keep getting bigger…

As we mentioned last week, BANKSY is indeed in Manhattan, this time for the opening of his self-funded mock pet store installation, titled “Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill,” and he’s spending big to post huge—and, yes, LEGAL—wall-sized murals around downtown to prove it. These two new installments—located at Houston & MacDougal and Canal Street near the Holland Tunnel—were again paid for by the deepening pockets of Sir Banksy himself, and executed by expert sign painters, COLOSSAL MEDIA, who just days prior installed the reigning street art king’s first two mega-rats. HAVE A LOOK: Read the rest of this entry »