At four a.m. on Saturday morning, we fell out of the (green) cab, stumbled across Ninth Avenue, and ran smack into this pretty face. Wheat paste and paper cut-out still dripped down the plywood wall. Shepard Fairey (of Obama and Pablove fame) had paid my block a visit and swiftly skedaddled, seemingly minutes before our inebriated arrival.
Naturally our first inclination was to pay tribute to vandalism (however sophisticated) with more vandalism. We tore off a tiny corner, saved the rest for the denizens of the crack house against which Fairey’s work was affixed, and fell upstairs to bed.
The next morning as we set out for brunch, we tried to find the spot where this picture had lived, but all that survived were scraps and a splatter of paste on the sidewalk. Within just a few hours unwitting residents of my glittering Midtown block reduced Fairey’s art to trash. It is very likely that we (and Fairey) are the only people in New York - indeed the world! - who know what it was. And all that remains is the corner we saved - a triangle of black with the word OBEY stenciled in white, holding court over my kitchen, awaiting a visit to the framer.
