Los Angeles street artist Plastic Jesus's infamous cocaine-snorting Oscar statuette, which caused controversy, has been removed from Hollywood Boulevard just days before the Academy Awards.
The artist in an attempt to expose Hollywood's worst kept secret in broad daylight recently installed a life-sized Oscar statuette snorting cocaine on its hands and knees, which is meant to draw attention to Hollywood's "hidden" problem of drug addiction that goes unnoticed until the death of an A-list celebrity, the New York Daily reported.
Plastic Jesus said that they're deluded if they're saying that cocaine isn't a major part of Hollywood and almost every other city in the world, A lot of people will sit down and watch the Oscar show on 22nd Feb and then go and indulge in cocaine.
The controversial piece of art, titled "Hollywood's Best Party," shows an Oscar figure snorting drugs through a rolled up 100 dollars bill, as a black "American Excess" card lies nearby.
The artist said that he removed it after a "grouchy, old man started ranting about it, adding that he wants to cause controversy about the issue, but don't want to cause controversy about the placement.
He added that he didn't want a confrontation as the piece is out there and people have posted it. It got enough publicity to get people to think.
The artist moved the statue, made of fiber glass, with the cocaine created out of crushed aspirin, back to his studio in downtown Los Angeles, but he plans to display it again on Melrose Avenue.