Smear

Who is Smear?

Cristian Gheorghiu became famous as an American street artist/graffiti artist and contemporary painter under the name of Smear in the 2000s, and his name and tagger name were further launched into the public eye by a series of high profile arrests and subsequent articles on the arrests and on his art which appeared in the Los Angeles Times from 2009 to 2011, followed by television appearances and further media coverage, which came on top of a street fame which had already been widespread in the international graffiti culture. The Los Angeles Times in a March 2011 front page article called Smear "a subculture sensation" and his work has appeared in numerous contemporary art galleries as well as a solo museum exhibit in 2009. He was also a defendant in a civil lawsuit filed by the L.A. City attorney's office, a lawsuit which largely because of its First Amendment implications has garnered the attention of international media, including the Huffington Post, L.A. Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, and the Associated Press.