Shepard Fairey Is Pissed

Earlier this week Eastsider L.A. reported that Shepard Fairey had the exterior of his Echo Park studio sandblasted to remove tagging, and an anti-graffiti coating applied to aid in the removal of any future vandalism. The blog post noted the irony of a man so recently convicted of graffiti vandalism going to extreme lengths to protect his own building from graffiti – and Fairey was not amused. He fired off an angry letter to Eastsider L.A., which begins:

Your post about the sealer on our building was very obnoxious. Do you just not give a shit about objectivity?

A few more highlights:

Are you pro-street art or graffiti? If the answer is yes, then I’d assume based on your portrayal of me, that you’d welcome graffiti on your house or business lest you be revealed to be an anti-art hypocrite.

Your attempt to portray me as hypocrite was thinly veiled incitement for people to tag our building.

Maybe the economy has made you desperate, or maybe you are always slime. Either way, you should be ashamed.

The entire rant is here. And totally conflicts with our image of Fairey as a sweet, sensitive, bunny-hugging artist-type.

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