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]

17 year-old Kyle Shaw bragged to his friends about detonating a device that took out a few windows and some benches at said UES Starbucks in lieu of beginning some sort of Project Mayhem, a terrorist group depicted in Fight Club. The cops busted him, he got taken to the hoosgow, and sent home to house arrest on a $100,000 bail. But not before someone tried to see how legit he was about this whole Fight Club thing. In essence: the kid got socked.

The 17-year-old said he was using a jailhouse phone when a fellow inmate asked if he was in "the program" — a real-life "Fight Club" at Rikers.

The menacing query was quickly followed by a punch to the teen's face.

Emphasis mine. It's not reported whether or not said punch was retribution for violating the First Two Rules of Fight Club, but neither was the punch, apparently: as of his showing up to court, he hadn't reported the punch to authorities, so maybe he learned the first two rules!

Then again, it could've been an overzealous Starbucks employee jacked up on the sauce! They might start serving it in locations around the country, and they're testing out the new program in Seattle next week.

Starbucks is trying to brew up new business by offering bottled beer and glasses of wine at one of its Seattle stores next week — with a view toward expanding its version of European-style coffeehouses to other cities. The 16,000-store chain hopes to offer a more traditional coffeehouse, with live music and poetry readings and espresso made from a manual machine rather than an automated one. It would also offer bottled beer and glasses of wine for $4 to $7.

Maybe he was a lab rat? It's a long-shot (read: zero possibility, though, we wish) but either way, the kid doesn't have to worry about the legacy of Project Mayhem moving forward. If Starbucks ends up with their diabolical plan to infect America with booze-shilling, live-performance-having, European-esque coffeehouses that can spice up a Frappichino to go with that open mic, Mayhem will run awesomely, absolutely wild.

COFFEE MORON'S JAILHOUSE SHINER [NYP]

A CHAIN OF 'BAR' BUCKS [NYP]

After the bomb went off, we wrote: "Two teenagers were seen fleeing shortly after the blast blew out windows of the Starbucks. Therefore everything about this story is guaranteed to be the result of idiocy." Turns out we were wrong—everything that happened was the result of idiocy and Chuck Palahniuk. Cops arrested 17 year-old Kyle Shaw for the explosion, which "appears to have been modeled on a scene from the 1999 film 'Fight Club.'"

Mr. Shaw had bragged to friends that he was responsible for the bombing, [NYPD head Ray] Kelly said, and had started an underground fight club modeled on the one in the 1999 film, which was directed by David Fincher and starred Brad Pitt and Edward Norton and was based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk.

"His statements indicated he was launching his own Project Mayhem," Mr. Kelly said

Kyle had a copy of Fight Club on his person at the time he was arrested. True fact. Cops also found "a box of sparklers" in his house, so, close call.
[NYT]

Maybe the Greasers, trying to mess with the Socs! Or maybe the work of some bored rich kids who have to spend the summers in the Hamptons with parents instead of smoking weed in the city with friends. Sadly, though, none of those things:

Police are also uncertain of the incendiary substance used to vandalize the field. The accompanying letter, although unavailable for release, is takes issue with the school board's business decisions according to Anderson who said "the author was expressing their concerns and dissenting opinions as to how the school board conducts business."

So! The burning of money was presumably an unironic statement, which is disappointing, though I bet that five-page letter's pretty interesting.

Oh well. At least whoever did it was rich enough to buy some substance that the cops in the Hamptons couldn't figure out. But still: nice work. Though if you'd burned a dollar sign into the East Hampton High polo field, that would've been something. Seriously.

Vandals Scorch A Giant Dollar Sign In East Hampton Football Field [Hamptons.com]

Fairey was arrested in February, and initially looked like he was going to fight the case. But the prospect of spending a lot of time in court in Boston must have tired him out. He pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor vandalism charges, got 11 charges dropped, and was sentenced to two years probation.

The 39-year-old Los Angeles street artist must pay $2,000 to a graffiti removal organization and cannot possess tagging materials - such as stickers or paste - in Boston except for authorized art installations. He also must tell officials when he plans to visit Suffolk County, where Boston is located.

Hey officials, he'll probably never visit your town again, to practice his world-famous art, which could give your city a serious injection of badly needed cultural cachet. No. He'll stay far away. Score one for law and order.
[USAT. Pic: Getty]

The new show's at the museum in Bristol, where Banksy's from, because he is really this guy. All pics from the Facebook page of Robin Gunningham.

So far PB and his crew have had shows at two galleries in NYC, and one in LA. And while, yes, it's unquestionably a step up on the ladder to art world fame, you have to admit that Poster Boy's style looks better down in the tunnels than it does on a wall above ground. Still, good luck dude. Some pics of his gallery work, via Jim Kiernan's Flickr and Poster Boy's Flickr:

Some group called "Appropriate Media" went and splashed paint all over a classic Banksy piece in Bristol, cause Banksy is way too "middle class" now. No idea when "Middle class" became a slur over there. Also, Banksy is in fact upper class. Anyhow, their manifesto:

In the early hours of this morning, Banksy's 'Mild Mild West' on Stokes Croft in Bristol (UK) was repainted by a member of Appropriate Media, presenting an alternative version of this 'alternative Bristol landmark'.

Through this action, Appropriate Media asks ?What is the value of street art??. How much time and money will be spent to restore this urban 'masterpiss' by urban masterpisser, Banksy.

Come on, you only care about it cos its a Banksy and he sells his lazy polemics to Hollywood movie stars for big bucks.

Come on, you only care about it cos makes you feel edgy and urban to tour round the inner city in your 4x4, taking in the tired coffee table subversion that graffiti has become.

Graffiti artists are the copywriters for the capitalist created phenomenon of urban art.
Graffiti artists are the performing spray-can monkeys for gentrification.
We call for the appropriate and legitimate use of public and private property.

We are taking matters into our own hands

We will not seek permission

We will retaliate

Hmmm. Current odds in favor of this being a stunt by Banksy himself: 3-2.

Earlier that evening Nara was all up in Niagara bar in the East Village, drawing shit all over the walls, and what did they do? Put plexiglass over it. That shit is valuable. This proves that drunks are smarter than the NYPD, although not as romantic about the impermanence of art:

[The Tangent/ AMNY]

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]

MOMA hired an advertising guy named Doug Jaeger to design the museum's subway ads. He, in turn, got ad remix vandalartist of the moment Poster Boy to come in and remix some of the MOMA ads, which caused a big uproar, for reasons we cannot fathom. Now MOMA has "completely severed" its relationship with Jaeger, because he went and let this stupid artist mess up their perfectly good ads.

'Motherfuckers Opposed to Molesting Advertisements' is more like it, ha. [NYP]

NY Mag scooped this story earlier this week, which ended up bringing more attention to the whole thing than anybody except Poster Boy probably wanted. MOMA denied being complicit in the "destruction" of the ads. But you know who was complicit? MOMA's advertising guy!

The problem here is that having Poster Boy remix your ads does, of course, make them much more interesting. But it's vandalism and he's a criminal so even MOMA itself must decry this outrageous behavior, event though it clearly benefits them, and secretly they probably love it, because they're art nerds and they like being edgy or whatever.

The bigger issue is this: you're walking a very fine line, homeboy. Nothing wrong with ripping up some MOMA ads (presumably) for pay. But eventually Nike will come calling asking for the same thing, and you have to be able to tell them to go to hell. Remember: the Basquiat Reeboks didn't come out until he was long dead.
[NYP; Pic via NY Mag/ Doug Jaeger]

Henry Matyjewicz, 27, rejected an arrangement in which he would plead guilty to the top charge of criminal mischief, a misdemeanor, and perform 100 hours of community service. Instead, he'll be back in court in April to face the possibility of trial, which could land him in jail for up to a year.

The NYPD and the New York Post have formed a joint media-legal cooperative to bring this unruly paster of bits of colorful posters to justice! The cops leaked to the paper that Matyjewicz was cooperating, probably trying to smear his reputation with his homeboys back on the mean streets, where he lives. Regardless, get your trial Henry, hell yes! This will require a Post reporter to stake out the courthouse again, which we find utterly hilarious, for some reason. And they're calling you 'HELL RAZOR,' which is nice.

Perhaps we are all Poster Boy. [NYP]

Please note:

January 29th I taught a class for some art students on media activism. By actually producing a piece in front of them I hope to give them both the tools and the confidence to be able to go out and re-imagine the public environment they live in on their own terms.

So this is all on the up-and-up. Heh.