Boston merchants are enjoying the free publicity from Fairey’s arrest, show and artwork. The Boston Herald explains how some of them feel about their buildings sporting Fairey’s guerilla art:
We like what it looks like, and it also works as free publicity for us,” said Greg Hoffman, service manager at Allston’s International Bicycle Center, where Fairey’s giant red soldier mural adorns the shop’s exterior wall. “It’s not just graffiti and it’s up to the people to decide whether they want to leave it up.”
Leave it up is what many folks have opted to do. Two weeks ago, Patrick Lyons of the Lyons Group decided to leave Fairey’s Mujer Fatal mural on his Lansdowne Street property. Lyons described the work, which faces the Massachusetts Turnpike, as “fabulous and genius.”
“The building looked one way and looks another way today,” Lyons said. “It looks much richer today than it did.” Other locations that currently sport Fairey installations include Cambridge’s Central Square, the Tufts University student center and a 20-by-50-foot Peace Goddess banner at City Hall.
[ . . . ]“He’s a controversial street artist that crosses the fine line between what’s legal and illegal,” said Hoffman, who said he was excited when Fairey came to his shop one afternoon in October and asked to put up the display. “And that’s what controversial street artists do.”
Around the corner from the International Bicycle Center, Fairey hit the brick wall on the side of Stingray Body Art on Cambridge Street. Like the Lansdowne display, Fairey wheat-pasted the red propaganda poster without approval from the building’s owners. But that didn’t phase Stingray, which specializes in tattoos and piercings. “We just thought, whatever, it’s not offensive, it’s art,” said Stingray assistant manager Kaylin Miller. “It’s not like it’s drawn on our windows or doors.”
Not Everyone is Upset About Shepard Fairey’s Street Art (Boston Herald)
