BOSTON.- Street artist Shepard Fairey was arrested last night in Boston on two warrants after he allegedly tagged property in Boston with graffitti based on his Andre the Giant street art campaign, reported the Boston Herald.

"Fairey, a 38-year-old known for his countercultural style, was arrested on two outstanding warrants and was being held at a police station, according to a police official with knowledge of the arrest who requested anonymity", according to the Boston Globe.

A crowd of about 750 people were waiting for Fairey to appear at the event last night, some paying up to $500 for tickets on Craigslist, when they were told he was arrested, the Globe said.

The artwork is based on a copyrighted photograph taken in April 2006 by Manny Garcia while on assignment for the Associated Press. Fairey feels his use of it falls within the legal definition of fair use. Lawyers for both sides are currently in discussions seeking an amicable agreement.

It seems Mr. Fairey has become so famous that he now has a PR agency to look after his image. This past month, ArtDaily contacted Julia Axelrod from Evolutionary Media Group so that an article could be written about Mr. Fairey´s image of Obama for inauguration day. Ms. Axelrod asked co-worker Olivia Perches, from Obey Giant Art Inc. to get in touch with ArtDaily´s editor. Everything seemed to be going smoothly until Ms. Perches asked for a fee (ArtDaily does not pay fees to museums, galleries or artists for publishing their works of art). After being told that ArtDaily did not pay fees to artists for the use of their work and the fact that there is no advertising on the newspaper she agreed to supply the image. The day after this she got in contact with ArtDaily´s editor and she said that she was too busy to supply the image and that Mr. Fairey would be out of town and unavailable for the next two months.

The portrait that came to symbolize the historic campaign of President-elect Barack Obama is now on display at the National Portrait Gallery. The piece was acquired by the museum through the generosity of Washington, D.C., art collectors Heather and Tony Podesta, in honor of Tony Podesta’s mother, the late Mary K. Podesta. This large-scale mixed-media stenciled collage is on view in the “New Arrivals” exhibition, on the museum’s first floor.

Fairey’s Barack Obama “Hope” poster became the iconic campaign image for the first African American president of the United States. Early in 2008, Fairey produced his first Obama portrait, with a stenciled face, visionary upward glance, and the caption “Progress.” In this second version, Fairey repeated the heroic pose and patriotic color scheme, substituting the slogan “Hope.”

The artist’s intention that the image be widely reproduced and “go viral” on the Internet exceeded his greatest expectations. The campaign sold 50,000 official posters; a San Francisco streetwear company produced T-shirts; grassroots organizations disseminated hundreds of thousands of stickers; and a free downloadable version generated countless repetitions. Although the reproductions rarely convey the elegant surface patterning seen in this original collage, they forged an unprecedented and powerful icon for Obama’s historic campaign.

Shepard Fairey’s work is represented by the Irvine Contemporary gallery in Washington, D.C. His art is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In 2006, Gingko Press published a monograph on the artist’s career, “Obey: Supply and Demand.”

Shepard Fairey was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1970 and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. He received a BA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1992. He has had recent solo exhibitions at White Walls Gallery, San Francisco (2008); Merry Karnowsky Gallery, Los Angeles (2007); Jonathan Levine Gallery, New York (2007); Stolen Space, London (2007); and Galerie Magda Danysz, Paris (2006). His work is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; and the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. Fairey is also the founder of Studio Number One, a graphic design company.

A vendor shows a shirt with the image of United States President Barack Obama at Sukhumvit Road, in the center of Bangkok. The image of Obama was designed by street artist Shepard Fairey, who admitted that he was inspired by an image made by Associated Press photographer Manny Garcia. Photo: EFE/Barbara Walton