Obama Poster Artist Arrested and Arts Excised From Senate's Economic Stimulus Bill
Coincidence or Not?
According to a Boston Globe story
Shepard Fairey, whose street art poster for the Obama campaign flooded the internet and local street corners, storefronts, apartment windows and battered bumpers across the nation, was arrested Friday prior to the opening of a major show of his work at the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art. Some accounts say he was arrested for outstanding warrants alleging illegal "tagging" related to the Andre the Giant street art campaign
Kudos to the museum for sticking up for him (sort of), "We're very disappointed," said Paul Bessire, deputy director of the Institute of Contemporary Art."Shepard Fairey is a wonderful artist who created some positive work and we were very pleased to present his work here and around the city. We feel he is an influential artist."
A few days earlier a story broke that Associated Press is in dispute with him, claiming he illegally used a photo owned by AP as the basis for the Obama poster. AP wants compensation. Fairey claims fair use. The copyright lawyers are having a heyday.
(A side note that demonstrates just how far gone copyright law is from the creatives it was meant to protect is that AP claims compensation while Manny Garcia, a freelancer no longer with AP, doesn't even figure in the case--he gets squat from the AP. Indeed, Garcia is on record as being pleased that his photo was used by Fairey.)
Fairey has been arrested before, including at the DNC in Denver last year for hanging posters illegally, but one has to wonder about who dug up the old warrants and why now. There has been much activity by arts advocates to include money to provide jobs for artists in the economic recovery bill making its way through the US Senate. The House version included a $50 million infusion to the National Endowment for the Arts, that institution political pundits like Rush Limbaugh love to hate. Just about the same time the artist who helped make President Obama look really cool was being arrested again, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) added museums, theaters and arts centers to the list of projects prohibited from receiving any money from the bill. Your read right--the amendment says NO MONEY of any kind from anywhere in the bill to arts groups. The rest of the Senate gave it to him, including Minnesota's only seated Senator Amy Klobuchar, by a margin of 73 to 24.
