Even from a car rocketing through choked I-95 traffic at 75 mph, it's the kind of sight that whips heads away from the road: a suit-clad figure clutching a briefcase, his neck wrapped in a noose, dangling from a light pole.
Yes, Miami, that is a banker hanging next to the highway.
The grotesque image is the brainchild of graffiti artist Above, who wanted an appropriately shocking motif to catch Miami's eye for his message supporting the Occupy movements that have been squatting in city centers from Wall Street to the Stephen P. Clark Government Center in downtown Miami.
"He looks real," Above says of his hanging banker. "As I was putting him together, he started to freak me out."
The politically minded San Francisco artist noted for tweaking megataggers such as Banksy has spent the past month in the Magic City working with Primary Flight, the open-air Art Basel spin-off project.
The banker, who is dressed in a dark suit and red tie, with a bag over his head and cash spilling out of his briefcase, was the final touch to his Occupy-themed mural on a Wynwood wall bordering the I-95 northbound lanes.
In huge multicolored letters with dark shadow backdrops, Above painted, "Give a Wall Street banker enough rope and he will hang himself."
Check out a full cache of photos from Above's project at riptidemiami.com, or check it out for yourself next time you head north on I-95. Just try not to crash when you see the artwork through your passenger window.
