Shepard Fairey Interview
Came across this video of a Shepard Fairey interview over at Wooster Collective. I’ve never seen him or heard him or anything so it was very interesting to see what he’s all about - although I can’t say that I’ve spent many brain cells wondering what he’s like, I don’t think that this interview is at all what I would have expected had I thought about it. How’s that for a sentence? He’s quite establishmentarian (is that a word?), more so than I would have thought. And that isn’t a value judgement, I just found it interesting.
Shepard Fairey Interview - “Rise Above” Exhibition @ Merry Karnowsky Gallery from By Osmosis TV on Vimeo
He’s totally no joke. I can remember seeing an Andre the Giant has a Posse sticker as late as 2003 in Narita airport waiting on the immigration line. I mean, that’s some serious global staying power.
On a nearly completely unrelated note, the Jonathan Levine Gallery is showing a Survey of European Street Art starting on Dec 1. What makes it particularly awesome is that Space Invader will be showing there (will he be there??). So me and Maria will be there fo’ sho.
November 26th, 2007 at 7:10 pm
F, I am surprised you were not up on shep. He has been long on the art scene in NY and LA. One of the first to use non-traditional graf methods (wheatpasting, stickering, stenciling) for the benefit of public space beautification.
This piece was on the wall in an episode of Entourage - http://www.thegiant.org/wiki/index.php/LL_Cool_J_Blue
LL. Cool J is hard as hell.
November 27th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Yeah, I don’t know - I was always interested in him, I liked but never fully loved his stuff. I’d see his stuff around, I’ve got a couple of his obey bucks on my magnet board but I never went the extra step to dig too deeply. What can I say? I’m a slacker.
November 27th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Either stop by the office or the crib in brookyln and check out the collection, I have a few of his. Bk? When?
November 27th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
Nice! I will - although I don’t move to the 11211 till sometime early/mid 2008. Sigh.
November 28th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
In response to Fairey’s solo exhibition, Imperfect Union, (December, 2007) at the Merry Karnowski Gallery in Los Angeles, California, Mark Vallen, renowned artist, activist, illustrator and curator criticizes Fairey’s work and career as an artist, in a essay published on his Art for a Change web site. Vallen expresses his outrage at how Fairey has made a career “out of the consistent, secretive and wholesale copying of other people’s artworks†and describes why, in his opinion, “it should make obvious that anyone so ill-informed should not be in the vanguard of today’s political artâ€. He identifies Fairey’s work as “machine art that any second-rate art student could produce†by picking apart Fairey’s heavy usage of “silly portraits of a dead wrestling champion†as well as “absurdist propagandaâ€. Vallen acuses Fairey of “toying with the veneer of radical politics†when “his views are hollow and non-committalâ€. Vallen also explains how Fairey is “deceiving people by pawning off counterfeit works as original creations†with numerous examples of original pieces shown side by side with Fairey’s “lucrative OBEY fashion line†version. In the example of the White Panther logo, Vallen emphasizes that by “exploiting the panther logo for profit by printing it on boutique clothing, Fairey has accelerated the dehistoricization and commodification of American historyâ€, and in his opinion, “has forfeited his ability to speak as a dissidentâ€. He states that “Fairey is guilty of utilizing historic images simply because he “likes†them, and not because he has any grasp of their significance as objects of art or historyâ€. Vallen further supports that “Fairey simply filches artworks and hopes that no one notices†and that “these days any amateur with a minimally written crackpot manifesto can make waves in the world of artâ€. If Fairey has “developed a profitable livelihood exclusively based on pilfering the artworks of othersâ€, Vallen ultimately asks “can Shepard Fairey honestly be described as an artist who can critically assess the unholy union of government and big business, or offer comments on the underpinnings of the capitalist machine?â€. Koloman Moser, Ralph “Bingo†Chaplin, Pirkle Jones, Rupert Garcia, Rene Mederos, Félix Beltrán and Gary Grimshaw are a few of the plagiarized artists that are mentioned in Vallen’s critique.
http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Obey/index.htm
November 29th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Wow… that’s heavier fare than this blog is used to… I didn’t have time to read that piece completely, although it seems interesting. I guess.. I mean, is the difficulty of making any given piece of art definitive of it’s artistic qualities? More murkily I guess is the question about repurposing art and using it somewhere else, is it copying or a distinct vision. Beats the living hell out of me. I know in music when DJ’s repurpose samples that that’s music. I have no idea… I was a math major, not no art theorist.
December 5th, 2007 at 5:25 am
Mark Vallen is simply trying to jumpstart his go-nowhere career by bashing someone who actually HAS one. It’s a time-honored tradition among the second-rate and failing. The fact that he passed out literature– including HIS OWN ART– amongst those standing in line at Fairey’s show ought to tell you he’s simply an opportunist out to raise his own profile. If he were truly interested in constructive dialogue he would have picked up the phone and made the local call to Fairey to ask him about it. Then, if he wasn’t satisfied with the answers– or at least wanted to include them– he could have offered up the other side of the coin. Instead, he posted a shrill call of “Look at Me!” in hopes of selling a few more canvases of his Jr. High caliber artwork. Pretty sad, really.