Audio By Carbonatix
In Cleveland they burned jerseys when LeBron left. In Miami it only makes sense that instead we’d deface some LeBron James-inspired street art.
Yes, a mural of the Miami Heat that has remained on a wall in Midtown Miami since Art Basel 2010 has already been defaced. Update: “It’s been fixed!”
See also: Miami Heat Muralist Serge Toussaint Just Wants to Meet LeBron
When news happens, Miami New Times is there —
Your support strengthens our coverage.
We’re aiming to raise $30,000 by December 31, so we can continue covering what matters most to you. If Miami New Times matters to you, please take action and contribute today, so when news happens, our reporters can be there.
That didn’t take long.
The national media seems to be misunderstanding the fact that it took artist Serge Touissant two years to complete the mural, which just means it was tweaked and added on to over the course of two years. Street art after all is an inherently living, changing medium.
New Times profiled Touissant back in 2009, and would direct you to this particular sentence: “Today, Touissant charges about $200 for storefront murals that take him two hours to finish.”
It’s sad that the mural was defaced, but Touissant could be probably have it back to original shape in less than an afternoon if he wanted to.
Touissant had also completed a portrait of Barack Obama under an I-95 overpass, but was forced by the County Department of Transportation to remove it. He did, but left an outline of the original. Seems like he understands that sometimes street art is often temporary.
Update: Look, guys, someone “fixed” it:
Anyway, here’s this thing we do in web publishing where we’re supposed to link to related article we’ve previously written, and yet we feel a little worried about linking to our arts blog’s piece on “nine epic Miami Heat murals.”
Follow Miami New Times on Facebook and Twitter @MiamiNewTimes.
