Shepard Fairey might as well call himself the King of New York considering that the artist has virtually taken over the city with his handiwork as of late. Between completing his new mural on Houston St. (which was quickly vandalized) and launching his month-long May Day show this weekend at the Deitch Projects, Mr. Obey has also found the time to surely please hipster nation and revamp the walls of Music Hall of Williamsburg.

ON May 1st, Fairey will host a launch party for his May Day exhibit at 88 Place with A-Trak and an assortment of special guests. You can buy tickets to the shindig here.

In related art world news, another piece of Banksy street art has been "cleaned".

Council cleaners in the Australian city of Melbourne have accidentally painted over a piece of Banksy street art which was potentially worth tens of thousands of pounds.

The stencil of a rat descending in a parachute was believed to be the only remaining work left by the elusive British graffiti artist during his time in Melbourne in 2003.

Cleaning workers contracted by Melbourne council had been asked to “remove all graffiti and tagging from unapproved street art sites” and clean the CBD’s graffiti-filled Hosier Lane, which has five approved street art sites which were left alone by the cleaners.

Melbourne Council CEO Kathy Alexander said despite the council’s knowledge that the rat stencil was a Banksy original, the cleaners were unaware of its significance and removed it because it was surrounded by graffiti tags.

“The removal of the rat stencil was not an error on the cleaner’s behalf as they were under instruction to clean all unapproved areas and were not made aware of the significance of the artwork,” Ms Alexander said.

In 2008 one of Banksy’s better known Melbourne works – a stencil of an old-fashioned diver wearing a trench coat at the rear wall of a building on Cocker Alley – was vandalised despite it being protected by a street art permit and a covered by a screen.