A year later, Schaefer was arrested for a chalk drawing of the word “Crime” with a Chase logo in front of a downtown L.A. bank. He spent 12 hours in jail for vandalism.
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Ceci n’est pas un incendie.
Really, René Magritte comes up quite often these days.
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He was arrested? For vandalism?! For drawing on the street??! With chalk??!!
And there goes my punctuation quota.
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paintings of trump, worth a google
there are still some things that can really only be conveyed convincingly in paint
http://tony.fineartstudioonline.com/viewcollection/94641
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It seems to be working all too well. Just as in the Oscar Wilde story, the actual sinner keeps sailing along unscathed, while the pictures depict what should be happening. If this guys stash of paintings were destroyed, we might finally see justice done!
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I have that poster!
Yes, because they’re confused by what’s going on - they have never actually been exposed to art (living in a country that has no art education). They have a vague notion about painting being naked women, fruit and landscapes or abstract splatters, not banks. They don’t know what’s going on, but it couldn’t be art. The instinctual response of not-smart people (and in particular, figures of petty authority) who are confused is to assume it’s nefarious and be hostile to it.
Arrested for a sidewalk chalk drawing - well, I guess that makes “sense” in that it provided an excuse to arrest him, not that it wasn’t completely ridiculous.
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But I do think it is past time that he moved on to doing Wells Fargo.
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I’m pretty sure that, even in countries with little art education, everyone understands that you can paint a picture of a bank and call it art. It’s not that they’re going “It can’t be art!” it’s that they’re going “What’s more likely, that this guy is an artist, or that he’s using artistry as a cover.” If you have someone who is on the lookout for crime in all places, they’re going to say the latter.
Ray Bradbury once wrote about being stopped by the police because they thought it was suspicious he was walking somewhere. I don’t think they were confused by the concept of walking, they just didn’t often see people walking long distances, and so took it as suspicious. Likewise, even if you know full well that an artist can paint a bank, it’d still be unusual to see it, so they’d flag it as suspicious. Is it stupid? Yes. Is it due to not understanding art? No.
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Then you must be really, really old like me or a younger person with nostalgia for the 60s ©® all rights reserved.
They may (or may not) understand that, but it’s not part of their base understanding of what art is, so when they actually see it, it doesn’t register “as art.” Which leaves them jumping to conclusions about what it must be - i.e. something nefarious. In the same way that in car-centric parts of the US, walking is something you do between your front door and your car/your car and the door of your destination, not to get from point A to point B; walking doesn’t register “as walking.”
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I think he could have used a little more reflected light inside the building windows and surroundings. As it is, it looks like the flames are just sitting on top of the building rather than consuming it.
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What, did L.S. Lowry witness a lot of bank painters? I didn’t say it’s not normal to paint a bank. It isn’t normal to paint a bank, mind you. If it was normal, you wouldn’t be referencing a single individual who did unique art, would you?
It’s abnormal not in the fact that it’s bad, but that you don’t see it often. I have never in my life walked past a bank and seen someone painting it. I’m willing to bet most people haven’t. Have you ever actually seen a person, standing outside a bank painting it?
I think we’ve expanded the definition of what “understanding art” is beyond the point of reason here. There’s lots of things that I don’t register as “art” for example, simply because I have a different view of art. To say that if these people had been properly educated in art they would have seen his work and gone “Oh, no, this isn’t just painting, it’s art!” is silly. Frankly, while the paintings here are well done, I think they’re a bit on the nose myself.
Besides that, let’s not pretend they had no motivation here. They saw him painting, saw the subject matter, got offended, and came up with an excuse to harass him. From the sound of it, I think they understood the art exactly as it was intended to be understood, and didn’t particularly care for the meaning it was getting across to them.
I dunno, that hat is kinda suspicious.
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He has two ears? That surprises me! I think that he should market vanity checks with images of his paintings printed on them that people could buy for their banking needs.
Not a bank as the only subject, but I have seen people painting landscapes of city centres here in the UK.
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Were I manager of a Chase bank branch or region, I would buy up as much of this artist’s work as I could, on the company decorating budget, and then use them in safety deposit box marketing.
I’m so tired of all these corporations being offended about being portrayed in any manner that could possibly be interpreted as remotely negative. They need to rediscover having a sense of humor about themselves, learning to roll with the punches, and to appreciate that someone is dedicating their time, effort, and imagination to them.
