“My idea of government is maybe different than other people’s,” says New York-based artist Ron English. “There are certain things we can’t do as individuals so we form our government to do things like create highways and put together national defense systems, but these people work for us. Now the whole country wants to smoke weed, except for a very small percent, yet the people we hired put us in jail and terrorize us and spend all our money on cannabis prohibition. Does that not seem like a problem?”
English is one of the world’s foremost street artists, and he’s spent decades using public space to call attention to issues ranging from corporate marketing and Trumpism to free speech and cannabis prohibition. In the past, he got busted for street art and even had to dodge the police in Philadelphia as recently as last fall, but none of it has stopped him from speaking out. PRØHBTD met with English at the Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles to learn more about life as an art outlaw.
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