The Bookstore, the T-Shirt - Make Art, Not War
So I was working at the local bookstore the other day when a teenager came in wearing a colorful and graphic t-shirt that said, “Make Art, Not War.” I asked her where she got the t-shirt and she told me that she got it from the Syracuse Cultural Workers Tools For Change. In further admiring this t-shirt design, I learned that it had been created by artist Shepard Fairey. Why did his artwork seem so familiar to me?
Veronica Mars Poster - This Is Your God
First, I remembered the fantastic poster on the wall of Keith Mars’ office in the TV show Veronica Mars. The poster features a close-up picture of United States currency and says, “This Is Your God.” This is also a Shepard Fairey design that features his hallmarks of terse copy and punchy pictures.
Obey Propaganda
In researching Shepard Fairey further, I realized he also designed a t-shirt I bought last spring that features a circular mandala-type design that reads, “Obey Propaganda.” It also features an ominous face with a star in the center that is reminiscent of Soviet propaganda posters.
Obey the Déja Vu
Where had I seen all this before? Probably on the streets of Washington D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia, when the east coast of the United States was my stomping grounds in the '80s and '90s. Fairey used the face of big-time wrestler Andre the Giant to launch a guerilla ad campaign that plastered these posters all over urban areas. You can even read about the Philosophy of Obey in a series of three new books by Sarah Jaye Williams and published by NerveBooks UK.
Obey Nixon
But wait there’s more. I attended the wedding of my brother in Philadelphia in May of 2008. My brother is an avid runner and photographer who used to live in Washington DC. He would often email me the more interesting photos he gathered along the way in his urban playground, including a photograph of a large poster of Richard Nixon. After the most wonderful wedding I have ever attended, my brother and his new wife passed out parting gifts of photographs for all of the guests. He gave me a copy of the Nixon poster photograph and I realized at once from the Andre Star and Obey signature that this was a Shepard Fairey poster. Suddenly Shepard Fairey was everywhere in my life.
Vote Obama
More recently, Fairey has produced powerful political campaign posters for presidential candidate Barrack Obama. The posters have been a sell-out success for both Fairey and Obama.
Why Shepard Fairey Is An Artist
I think Fairey’s artwork is successful because he has knowledge of graphic design and art history. Fairey has studied the classic propaganda posters of the Communist era in the Soviet Union, as well as propaganda posters of World War II. Fairey’s artwork makes the statement that all graphic design is propaganda, and that perhaps as consumers we need to be more aware of advertising and the huge impact it makes on our life. Fairey's devoted street team of poster plasterers has helped to make Shepard Fairey an art star without being in a museum. In the art world, that is extremely unusual.
Fairey is so successful that another artist has spent countless hours documenting sources of Shepard Fairey’s artwork in a sad attempt to disprove his credibility. In reality, this only reinforces the brilliance of the artwork of Shepard Fairey. Is Shepard Fairey's work too derogative? In truth, all good artists borrow from the past to represent to us the present and future.
