Famous Japanese artist arrested for graffiti in NYC says he enjoyed jail

Picture 1-9

200903121023

(Photo on right by Jeff Newman of TheArtCollectors.)

Famous Japanese pop artist Yoshitomo Nara says he enjoyed his stay in a NYC jail recently. He had been arrested for graffiti the day before his show opened at the Marianne Boesky Gallery. (The owner is the daughter of the even more famous "greed is good" criminal Ivan who served two years at Lompoc Federal Prison Camp for insider trading.)

Usually associated with his paintings and sculptures of doe-eyed figures, the Japanese artist had been caught tagging a graffiti portrait of two Japanese friends in the Union Square subway station.

Nara was optimistic about his two days in lockup, though, saying it was "a nice experience in my life," and that the environment he found himself in was "like in the movies."

(Via Japan Probe)