Street Art Hotspot: Shepard Fairey’s Mural in Dumbo, NYC

Shepard Fairey, the street artist most famous for designing the Obama Hope poster, recently unveiled a new mural on the side of the BQE in Dumbo. Fairey’s mural is one of many in a series created for the tenth anniversary of the Wooster Collective, which highlights ephemeral art on the streets in cities around the world.

Shepard Fairey has created a lot of buzz around the street art community and opened up many debates about what defines street art. Does it make a difference if a mural is legally sanctioned? Do street artists have more street cred if they tag illegally and get arrested? In a recent interview, Fairey told Gothamist that he has been arrested sixteen times, but he doesn’t feel that he has more street cred for it. “To me,” he said, “street art was always about finding a democratically accessible form for art.”

To see a wealth of street art, head down to Dumbo, where former warehouses are being decorated by artists and murals are popping up everywhere. When a neighborhood like Dumbo, which was raw and underdeveloped when Fairey used to tag there in the ’90s, encourages public murals like this one, it’s a sign that the neighborhood is changing fast.

Get in touch with the author @lauraitzkowitz.