Is Poster Boy a graffiti vandal? And have the police arrested him?

Poster Boy at work on YouTube

Poster Boy is a unique type of graffiti 'artist'. The New York police believe they have arrested him. But his supporters say Poster Boy is a movement, not a person...

New York's subway network may be one of the least visitor-friendly in the world, but it is virtually graffiti-free since the City crack-down on vandalism in the '90s. But recently a new kind of artistic vandalism has attracted growing interest, and so has its perpetrator 'Poster Boy'.

As shown in the much-downloaded YouTube video, Poster Boy cuts out sections of subway poster ads and swaps them around making amusing hibrid posters.  The aim, according to Poster Boy, is to attack consumersism etc. Imagine the NYPD's delight, then, when the anti-consumerist guerrilla artist, dubbed New York's Banksy, was picked up by plain-clothed officers last week at an art show in the SoHo area of Manhattan, his presence at the event having been openly proclaimed on a fly leaflet.

Poster Boy realised that the film and product adverts at subway stations are now made with self-adhesive backing, rendering them giant stickers, which can be cut up into bits and remodelled in an echo of a digital mash-up. It's street art, Captain, but not as we know it. See the YouTube video here.

The NYPD announced they had arrested a 27-year-old from  Brooklyn named Henry Matyjewicz and promptly placed him on remand. He was later released on bail put up by friends.

However just hours after his arrest, the New York Times received an email purporting to come from a "Henry" who claimed that Poster Boy was not a single individual but a "movement".

Read the full article from The Guardian here