MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — Roderick “Rod” Webber, the Massachusetts-based multimedia artist who used red lipstick to tag the wall where the “Art Basel banana” had been, appeared in Miami-Dade County court on Thursday in Miami Beach.
Miami Beach police officers arrested Webber on Dec. 9 for tagging the Perottin Gallery’s blank wall at the Miami Beach Convention Center during Art Basel Miami Beach.
Webber, 46, chose the “Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself” statement that went viral after convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein was found unresponsive Aug. 10 in a Manhattan jail cell. His “Epstien” tag had a typo.
Webber also admitted to tagging a gate at Epstein’s former Palm Beach estate, after he was released from jail on a $1,000 bond on Dec. 10. He claimed to have used a “harmless hairspray” that “should’ve come off with a single rinse.”
Webber told the Boston Magazine that the Paris-based Perottin Gallery’s “publicity stunt” annoyed him and he felt like "calling them on their bull---.” Aside from Paris, Perottin also has spaces in New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, Tokyo and Shanghai.
On a public letter to David Datuna, the New York-based artist of the viral taped banana, Webber wrote the “stunt” was representative of the type of art that serves as “a front for the wealthy to hide their financial assets” and of tactics used to "artificially increase the perceived value of a work.”
Webber was in South Florida during the first week of December to promote his work at the Fridge Art Fair, a satellite event in downtown Miami, and he was giving black T-shirts with his tag to some of the contributors of his Basel Vandal legal fund.
Webber is facing a misdemeanor criminal mischief charge, and he is set to appear in court again on Feb. 27 for a trial hearing in front of Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Stephanie Silver.
Copyright 2020 by WPLG Local10.com - All rights reserved.
