“New! Freedom Mask! Greetings from the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to the beloved people. Now available in the market for an unlimited time”

Greetings from Cairo.  You may not know this, but ABC Journal has got friends world wide.  The above poster was getting quite some buzz over here in Cairo yesterday.  One of Cairo’s premier street artists, Ganzeer, was arrested by the Military Police for putting these up around downtown.  Ganzeer has been behind a bunch of murals and pieces all over the city post-revolution, some of which the Military/Government (same thing these days) have taken down.  In response he organized “Mad Graffiti Weekend“.  While Mad Graffiti Weekend seemed to go off without too many hitches, the Army was not pleased with more posters being put up in the lead to today’s “2nd Day of Rage” (people protesting for the Army to hold up their promises from the revolution).   After a rapid twitter campaign and some actual in person petitioning, Ganzeer was freed by about 9 last night.

Truly an interesting moment for the intersection of art, politics, revolution, and a nascent democracy here in Egypt.  While dissentful post-Jan 25 street art seems to have been tolerated when it was directed against the former regime, Ganzeer’s arrest presented a test for the ruling military in how they are going to respond to art directed against themselves.  One wonders what Ganzeer’s fate might have been if he wasn’t somewhat of a “revolution celebrity artist” (not that they knew that initially) here these days, given the military has already arrested and jailed thousands of activists.

Now if you don’t mind, I’m gonna go put up Chad Moore prints all over Tahrir Square……