The NYT says the city's buffed about half the buildings surrounding the High Line so far, so that Ed Norton—who I blame for everything bad that's High Line-related—will not have to have his Prada shades sullied by the vision of art that doesn't cost millions upon millions of dollars. Pretty dramatic set of before and after pics here; whoa, it looks so much blander now. Awesome.

Even more annoying than the rich High Line people here are, of course, the NYT.com commenters. Who are perhaps the same people!

Graffiti is trash. period.
Always glad to see vandalism repaired.
Graffiti is not ART, and it never was. There's no historical meaning to it, except that some uneducated loser wasted paint and time to deface an already attractive wall or whatever.
Graffiti is not art, and never will be.

Etc. Shut up, dumb mean people. Anyone echoing these sentiments (without an incredibly creative argument) in our comments, which are supposed to not suck, will be banned. Anyone posting pics of where they tagged the High Line wins a free kiss.

[Would have had this post up earlier except stupid Flickr was down. Pics: Niznoz, Zantony.]

It's old hat that Fairey's been embattled in a court case over fair use, the idea that something like an image can be used in the context of news if it doesn't sap value from the source's original work. That source, in this case, being the wire news behemoth Associated Press, who are more or less trying to find away to put a price on information so blogs and the like can't take "their" news and do stuff with it like talk about it. But for the time being, Fairey's the guy the AP's suing the pants off of because he's a high profile figure who created a high profile piece of art from their high profile photgraph. And they want some of that young, idealistic money shelled out to Fairey, who's made a grip from his posters. He's probably lost quite a bit fighting this.

In a recent court deposition, Fairey identified one photo as the one he used as the inspiration for his poster, while the AP identified theirs-taken by wire photographer Mannie Garcia-as the one he used.

Well, he "realized" early on that it was Garcia's photo that he had, in fact, used, and then deleted a bunch of shit on his computer to wipe clean evidence that he knew any better. Whoops. Time to confess!

In an attempt to conceal my mistake I submitted false images and deleted other images. I sincerely apologize for my lapse in judgment and I take full responsibility for my actions which were mine alone. I am taking every step to correct the information and I regret I did not come forward sooner. I am very sorry to have hurt and disappointed colleagues, friends, and family who have supported me in this difficult case and trying time in my life. I am also sorry because my actions may distract from what should be the real focus of my case – the right to fair use so that all artists can create freely. Regardless of which of the two images was used, the fair use issue should be the same.

Whoops. You can't forget: Fairey's also lawsuit happy to artists who ape or parody his stuff, so it's hard to feel too bad for Fairey, even if he is trying to cover his legal costs and make a complex argument by being an asshole to someone els just like him. Birds of a feather. Also, Fairey lied to Bucky Turco at ANIMAL New York in an email, but Bucky doesn't get his own apology from Fairey. Short end of the stick, these bloggers get. That's HOPE for you.

So far the wingnuts are losing the Obama street art war, handily.

In Copenhagen. Via Per Corell.
U Street in DC. Via goimardantas.
In Jersey City. Via wallyg.
Shepard Fairey, museum-style. Via KwangSoo.
Shepard Fairey, street style. Via LoisInWonderland.
LES, NYC. Via tedjohnjacobs.
Italy is on some crazy shit. Via Max IK7TOE.
In Spokane. Via gerikasher.

[Joker pic via Newsbusters]

Let's review the recent evidence:

• He's a self-made man, who actually did enough "street art" on actual streets to earn gold-plated props. Heroic!
• He was already famous. But he got ten times more famous last year for the Obama posters. And he donated the proceeds to Obama. Heroic!
• He does other work for worthy causes like gay marriage. Heroic!
• The AP looked like it was bullying him over using its Obama photo. He was under siege. which made him look...heroic!
• Hey, he makes legal threats against small little artists for using his copyrights just like the AP was doing to him. Tool!
• And you know, the AP can really use every penny it can get these days, without other people making huge money-generating projects by stealing AP stuff without licensing it. Tool-ish.

From a very strict, hardcore, graffiti-centric, fuck-the-man perspective, it's easy to judge Shepard Fairey as a tool. It's equally easy to judge him as a worthless vandal, from a conservative perspective. But the guy goes around the world doing legal and illegal street art that, you have to admit, is pretty fucking cool; he's politically conscious, and put his money where his mouth is; and at the very least, he has well-considered reasons for the things he does, rather than just making shit up as he goes (see the clip below where he explains his rationale for fighting the AP).

In other words: chances are he doesn't even sell out as much as the average one of us does on an average day. The only reason people get so pissed at him in the first place is they really want the guy who makes those fresh ass shirts to be as righteous as his wheatpaste posters. Yea, he can be a hypocrite, and he's definitely not a purist, and times that pushes him into tool territory. We're all tools sometimes. At least he's a cool tool.

Yoshitomo Nara was in town for his gallery opening in Chelsea last month, and got a little drunk and went on down in the L train and drew a smiley face on the wall and was promptly handcuffed by the fuzz! Here is why New York City's War on Art will simply never be a success:

1. Your arrests just give the artists mad props where they live, in the streets!

Staff at the gallery declined comment yesterday, but a Japanese television crew doing a piece on Nara said the arrest would only give the artist more street cred at home.

"He's going to get big notoriety for this here and in Japan," a crew member said.

2. Your arrests just give the artists mad props in the other place they live, the media! Look at Poster Boy, for fuck's sake. And if Yoshitomo Nara had never been arrested, we never would have had the chance to bring you his delightful work.

3. NYC could be making some money off this!

The offending piece of graffiti has been erased, but given the value of Nara's other works, it likely would have been valuable, Oksenhendler said.

"It probably would have been worth ten grand if you or I got our hands on that brick," he said.

Don't be like that store owner who whitewashed the Banksy, Mayor Bloomberg. The value of that one little Yoshitomo Nara scrawl could have paid for a full day's cleaning of the hipster stench of the Bedford Ave. L train station. Do the right thing: legalize crime. [NYP]

Perhaps "artistic depths" is a better term than "heights:" German artist Edgar Müller created this miles-deep, 3D visual crevasse for the "Festival of World Culture" in Ireland last year. Video went online just over a week ago, offering Gotham's public arts administrators an idea for a viable, cheap, recession-era alternative to last year's waterfalls.

Fairey was set to DJ at a dance party held by the ICA. No big deal, he told the Boston Globe: He's been arrested 14 times. (For example, last October in Denver, on charges of vandalism.)

What's bizarre about the arrest: Police said Fairey had two warrants outstanding, though they didn't specify the crimes. Fairey has recently appeared in public with Boston Mayor Thomas Mennino to celebrate the ICA exhibit. So the police in Boston feel free to leave an accused criminal standing next to their mayor in broad daylight, and then decide to arrest him in front of a museum displaying the work their mayor just praised. It's not like Fairey's whereabouts have been a secret. Perhaps the timing of the arrest was meant to be dramatic. But doesn't it just make the police look incompetent?

There he is on the left, allegedly. Doubters can compare to these semi-censored photos posted on ASUPREMENEWYORKTHING. Same haircut and everything. On a related note, Neckface is still awesome, so no "blah blah hipster shutup blah blah" comments. Unless they're really smart. [Blogue.us; top pic via]

[via Shana Marie, squarerootoftwo, Outsider Mag, Animal NY]