Now we know who is to blame

Ran across this blame game wall stencil a few months ago just off of Tchoupitoulas Street uptown. It's kind of like watching a City Council meeting.



Anyway I wasn't sure we'd ever find out who the artist was but check it out.

In fact, the artist is not even trying to pass his work off as Banksy’s — he signs each piece with his adopted name, “Az,” and has a website showcasing it, Azwashere.com. He also has been featured at local galleries, including Treo and Gasa Gasa, and, in light of the ongoing confusion about his art, agreed to discuss it with Uptown Messenger.

Az is 32, has lived in seven or eight cities, and moved to New Orleans about two years ago. He started tagging about two years before that.

“I was living up in Fargo, and I was so bored that I wanted to make the place look not so much like a stereotypical suburban city,” Az said.

One night, when he was spraypainting the word ‘freedom’ on the back side of an apartment building, a passer-by took note of his license plate. With that, Az got his first attention from the police, and left Fargo soon afterward.

New Orleans, he said, has become a place of “refuge” for him, and he no longer wants to move around. Instead, he and artist Rex Dingler are collaborating on a project called “Not Jericho,” a sort of Craigslist to connect artists with property owners who have walls they want painted.

“New Orleans has been so against murals and graffiti in general, now that they are starting to want more public art, they’re having a hard time finding the artists,” Az said.

The website includes photos of some of his other work around town.  I was hoping to find this Magazine Street meter maid among them, but no.  Don't know whose this is.