the missing fafi
February 27th, 2024 @ 10:12 am
back in likeeee 2012, on one random afternoon in brooklyn, i was moseying around williamsburg with my ex and his family. we went out for lunch and then were window shopping (le cringe). we happened to step into some vintage boutique store, and while i was trying my hardest to find something to not make me loathe where i was (the hipster heartland of america), i found this babe, buried in the back of the store:
i nearly had a heart attack. i thought i cracked the case of the missing bedford fafi (there wasn’t much to the story… it was painted, then stolen, then left outside somewhere and i don’t think they ever caught who did it)! i immediately went to the front of the store to inquire whether or not they realized it was stolen/missing art. it turned out that the owner of the boutique was actually friends with fafi and that it was dropped off there for safe keeping (and she ended up inheriting it).
this all happened in likeeeeeeee 2008, and while i was aware of the crime, i guess i had no idea that it was ever found. back then, i was very tapped into street art, but we still relied on websites/blogs and mags vs social media for information. finding that info wasn’t so obvious to me, seeing as that i still thought it was missing 4 years later, lol.
anyway, the owner of the boutique was none other than futura’s wife! so the entire thing was an art world learning process for me, and i love that it ended up there. it’s kind of funny how small this world is… especially here in NYC.