The vanguard of the proletariat? Or a bunch of drunk rich people?
It was bound to happen. A day after street artist Shepard Fairey protested the timing of his arrest, somebody at the Wooster Collective street art blog has run a lengthy narrative suggesting a Boston police conspiracy designed to bring down Our Popular Mayor.
The plot? Boston cops, furious over Mayor Menino's wage freeze, conspired to arrest Fairey during his DJ set at the ICA, which would have taken place in front of nearly 800 people. Those people would riot. The police would dredge up the photos Menino had taken with Fairey in front of an "Obey" banner festooned on City Hall, and then... Well, what, exactly?
Cylon-on-Fairey taxi cab sex, we hope.
We all like to think that we are at the center of events much larger than ourselves, and the first-person narrative, by somebody named Dave Combs, has a certain paranoiac thrill that has spread it quickly across the internets. But the story doesn't add up.
If the BPD wanted to embarrass Menino so badly, why didn't they arrest Fairey at City Hall? If this is the best our police can do to get back at Menino for the wage freeze, we should probably take their guns away, for safety.
People reportedly paid $500 on Craigslist to get tickets to Fairey's DJ night. These are people without good sense—nobody should ever pay $500 to see somebody do something that he is not famous for doing—but are they the sort of people who set off a riot? Fairey's art might be resplendent with revolutionary posturing; the crowds who gather at the ICA? Not so much.
What do you think? Dastardly doings among the BPD graffiti squad or the fantasy of an overheated friend of Fairey?
Previously:
Shepard Fairey Sues Associated Press
Can Shepard Fairey Brand His Own Indignation?
Shepard Fairey Talks Obama, Plagiarism and Capitalism at ICA
Shepard Fairey Street Art Map: Boston


