“Fuck ICE!” posters by Scotty Ramon aka Kid Cudi have appeared on the streets of Washington, DC. They’re pasted to construction siding on Connecticut Av, lined up along M Street and popping up in Union Market.
And not just DC – they’re showing up in Chicago and LA.
They’re eye-catching examples of street art, like the Sandwich Guy tributes that blanketed the city last year.
The first time I saw one, it was drooping down from the front of a boarded-up restaurant. The contrast of black and blue made me stop and turn. A gust of wind blew the poster straight and I saw the message: FUCK ICE!
Kid Cudi is the stage name of Scotty Ramon, a musician who initially found fame in 2007 after uploading his song “Day ‘n’ Nite” to MySpace. Since then, he’s sold millions of singles and won two Grammy awards.
Online, people have compared the “Fuck ICE!” posters to the work of Neo-expressionist Jean-Michel Basquiat, who was a contemporary of Andy Warhol.
If you’re in DC, you can go to the Hirshhorn Museum to and see for yourself at the Basquiat x Banksy exhibit. Basquiat and Ramon both use bold strokes combined with an urgent cry for action.
(A reader points out that Kid Cudi’s work is also reminiscent of Henri Matisse.)
The posters are very much in the moment; very much the way we live now, as masked agents of the state disappear people while our democratic institutions fail to protect us. The street is an ideal venue for the “Fuck ICE!” posters. Let no one deny the terror that has descended upon this country.
These posters have evoked a visceral reaction. I’ve posted pictures of these posters and have received hundreds of hateful comments, including from people who glory in the death of protesters. They have memes that make a sick joke out of the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good.
The hate is not just online. One of our local chuds, a serial stalker and January 6th rioter, filmed himself tearing down the “Fuck ICE!” art after I posted a photo of them. J6ers can’t stop recording their crimes.
But he didn’t do a very good job at destruction and only tore down a couple of them in one location.
And then a fan came along and rescued the posters, picking up the pieces, taking them home and putting them on display.
Art will find a way.
And you certainly can’t stop wheat paste, something that the chuds should know by now. It’s a cheap, ephemeral and infinitely reproducible medium. It costs pennies. And there will always be more walls to put up posters in the dead of night.
Trump will disappear. Art will endure.
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