Banks on fire

[Dover]

Alex Schaefer is the hot Los Angeles artist of the
moment, thanks to a couple of oil-on-canvas works
showing banks burning down.

Although his work has been displayed at several
galleries over the years, Schaefer was mostly an
obscure figure in the art world whose pieces rarely
fetched more than $1,000.

That was until he painted a picture of a nondescript
bank on a run-of-the-mill San Fernando Valley street.

With flames leaping through the bank's roof, the work
began to take on a look similar to Ed Ruscha's
acclaimed 1966 "Burning Gas Station." Schaefer says
several passers-by stopped to give him a thumb's up.

Some, however, called police after their suspicions
were aroused....

[midnight]

1. K&R Hey my suspicious are through the roof that these banks

are living high off the hog, and giving us the tab.... I wonder if the police can investigate that....

[girl gone mad]

2. It fetched over $25,000 on Ebay.

I'd say he captured the zeitgeist.