NY POST...PAGE 6
Actor Willem Dafoe has plunked down $30,000 for a tapestry made out of discarded drug baggies - some of them still stuffed with heroin, cocaine and marijuana.
Dafoe and longtime girlfriend Elizabeth LeCompte bought the wacky wall hanging from underground artist Tom Fruin, 27, who found the baggies in a Brooklyn housing project. Fruin sewed together hundreds of glassine drug packets to make a shimmering tapestry called "Sediment: (Alfred E. Smith Housing Project)."
Dafoe was among the art world intelligentsia who snapped up Fruin's pieces before his new exhibition, "Cultural Narcotics: The Straight Dope," opened to a packed house at the Stephan Stux Gallery in Chelsea Saturday night.
"When Willem Dafoe and Liz LeCompte came over, Willem was standing in front of my work, giggling, like he felt he was being a real bad boy buying some of it," Fruin told Webster Hall curator Baird Jones at the opening.
"There is heroin and crack left in the drug bags because the users ditch the stuff right before they're about to get busted by the police. So often the packet is still completely full of smack . . .
"I don't know why the police don't arrive and just cuff us all," Fruin continued. "I guess they could arrest Willem Dafoe for conspiracy to distribute and possession right now also. It's weird, too, because I've shipped these
drugs overseas and there's been no problem."
Dafoe, who is in Sydney promoting "Spider-Man," in which he plays the villainous Green Goblin, released a statement to PAGE SIX confirming that he bought the illegal artwork.
"Tom Fruin is an up-and-coming young artist whose work I'm happy to support," Dafoe said.
Actor Willem Dafoe has plunked down $30,000 for a tapestry made out of discarded drug baggies - some of them still stuffed with heroin, cocaine and marijuana.
Dafoe and longtime girlfriend Elizabeth LeCompte bought the wacky wall hanging from underground artist Tom Fruin, 27, who found the baggies in a Brooklyn housing project. Fruin sewed together hundreds of glassine drug packets to make a shimmering tapestry called "Sediment: (Alfred E. Smith Housing Project)."
Dafoe was among the art world intelligentsia who snapped up Fruin's pieces before his new exhibition, "Cultural Narcotics: The Straight Dope," opened to a packed house at the Stephan Stux Gallery in Chelsea Saturday night.
"When Willem Dafoe and Liz LeCompte came over, Willem was standing in front of my work, giggling, like he felt he was being a real bad boy buying some of it," Fruin told Webster Hall curator Baird Jones at the opening.
"There is heroin and crack left in the drug bags because the users ditch the stuff right before they're about to get busted by the police. So often the packet is still completely full of smack . . .
"I don't know why the police don't arrive and just cuff us all," Fruin continued. "I guess they could arrest Willem Dafoe for conspiracy to distribute and possession right now also. It's weird, too, because I've shipped these
drugs overseas and there's been no problem."
Dafoe, who is in Sydney promoting "Spider-Man," in which he plays the villainous Green Goblin, released a statement to PAGE SIX confirming that he bought the illegal artwork.
"Tom Fruin is an up-and-coming young artist whose work I'm happy to support," Dafoe said.
