Snowden Bust Creators Want Their Statue Back From The NYPD

The three unidentified artists who created the four-foot-tall bust of Edward Snowden and installed it without permission without  on a pillar at the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument inside Fort Greene Park last week are now demanding that the NYPD return the statue, claiming — through a lawyer — that the police do not have the right “to indefinitely detain a work of art.”

“Whatever the right of the Parks Department to remove an unauthorized sculpture, that does not translate into the right of the police to indefinitely detain a work of art,” attorney Ron Kuby said this morning in Fort Greene Park, as reported by the New York Daily News. “The statue itself is not contraband.”

The public request comes as the NYPD investigates the bust’s illegal placement on the war memorial. The bust was removed early Monday, April 6, by the Parks Department under supervision of the NYPD, as it had not been approved for display as a work of public art by Parks.

However, following an outpouring of support — and some criticisms — for the artists and Snowden, and interest in the 100-pound plaster-like statue itself, the anonymous trio now want to do things by the book, formally — and legally — applying for an Art In The Parks permit after the fact. They are also receiving offers to display the bust in at least one Manhattan art gallery.

They just need the bust back first. Although they can replicate the bust using their existing cast and 3-D mold, it would cost more money for the materials to create another sculpture.

The NYPD has not yet responded to the request.