When Chicago artist Chris Devins spent his weekend painting an Eminem mural in the rapper’s birthplace of Detroit, he probably didn’t expect it to be vandalized the next day – but that’s precisely what happened.
Devins spent Saturday (September 4) in the Cass Corridor section of Midtown Detroit, painting a young Eminem onto a wall. He started at 1 p.m. and ended around 6 p.m., with members of the public snapping photographs and paying homage all day. The six-foot-tall image, however, had been damaged the next day with 18 bird head drawings made with a Sharpie.
“Only one day after it’s completion, some idiot in Detroit already defaced the new M mural,” he wrote on Instagram. “You can’t give some people anything good. Dumb. I can probably fix it but damn….”
Chris Devins wasn’t paid to paint the Eminem mural; instead, he did it as a form of “tactical urbanism” while in town with his wife for Labor Day weekend. He told The Detroit News that he “felt awful” about the event and that the graffiti was “disrespectful.”
“I was devastated,” he said. “Who would do that? That’s against the rules of street art. I want to restore it to its original value. I would like to re-present it to the community in its unblemished form.
“It was a great wall. It looked like it was going to sit there for a second, so I thought it could use some beautification. It really enhances that wall. To me, it’s totally appropriate. I wanted to do him looking young and fresh. I didn’t put up anything ugly.”
