Someone Defaced Melbourne’s Taylor Swift Graffiti Memorial Overnight And We’re Calling BS
Yesterday an ‘in memoriam‘ mural in Melbourne’s Hosier Lane popped up as a tribute to the death of Taylor Swift (well, her career that is). The painting came as a result of the feud the pop star is having with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian (more on our thoughts here).
Overnight, Lushsux claims that another street artist has defaced the mural, respraying it as a tribute to Harambe – the gorilla shot dead in an American zoo. Lol. Posting the image to Instagram in the early hours of this morning, the artist asked ‘WHO DID THIS?!?!”
As a response, people have taken to social media to express their anger, confusion or fuel speculation to who might have done it.
Other media outlets have also lead with headlines like: “Street artist unhappy mural of Taylor Swift in Melbourne has been sprayed over“.
But we’re calling a big ol’ bullshit. Lushsux is behind the change and we reckon he’s having a good ol’ piss take at the way we like to obsess on the latest pop-culture trends. Either that, or it’s a brilliant publicity stunt. Let us explain below.
Firstly, the artist posted this message last night having a good laugh at the fact that Swift’s lawyers were so quick to respond to his work. While it might be funny, being a graffiti artist and having the richest celebrity on the planet (predictably) threatening legal action is not a fun prospect at all.
Secondly, yesterday we reached out to Lushsux to comment on the Taylor Swift mural and received some interesting responses.
To finish up our short questionnaire we asked, “Is there any thing else you’d like us to mention about the artwork or your own artistic mission?” to which the Lushsux responded:
Im just trying to generate awareness about Harambe’s unjust death at the hands of his captors at the cincinnati zoo.
In context of the other answers we received, we thought the artist wasn’t taking our questions too seriously, but this morning there seems to be a bit more meaning behind it.
Thirdly, the artwork in the ‘defaced’ mural also looks strikingly similar to Lushsux’s previous work which is currently selling on his website. He’s also selling a brilliant R.I.P gangster Harambe print.
Lushsux: Pokemon CavemanSpongepika print
Lushsux: RIP Harambe print
We don’t know for sure if Lushsux is responsible for defacing his own work. But, given the similarities to previous work, yesterdays quote and telling us that the inspiration behind the Swift/Smith artwork is “just taking the piss, business as usual”… we reckon this is one genius piss take and we’re the butt of the joke. Well done, well done ??????