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'Hope' Artist Shepard Fairey Not Pleased With Obama's Performance
In creating his now iconic Obama "Hope" poster, Shepard Fairey went from being a cult street art figure to an artist synonymous with Barack Obama's revolutionary 2008 presidential campaign.
The artist Shepard Fairey is proud of his iconic poster, but is not overjoyed about Obama's performance as President. "I think what really is the problem with the two-party system is that it's very difficult for people without power to make a difference unless they try very hard. But the more people that do try, the easier it gets."(Mawuse Ziegbe) Fairey, who is engaged in a lawsuit with the Associated Press
over the use of one of the news agency's photos as a reference for the
artist's iconic work, is pleased, however, with the role his art played
in the Obama campaign.
"I'm very proud of the Obama poster ... because it's an image that showed that someone outside of mainstream politics, outside of corporate lobbyists could do something that affected what's going on in politics," Fairey said. "I think what really is the problem with the two-party system is that it's very difficult for people without power to make a difference unless they try very hard. But the more people that do try, the easier it gets."
While the Obama poster made him household name, the underground spirit of his Obey stickers and posters, which have been plastered around the world, is what endears Fairey to the work that initially made him a street art star.
"I'd say the grassroots, do-it-yourself ethos of the Obey campaign is what's more important to me because it's about doing something with very little resources and building a following and building a platform to communicate," he said.
33 Comments so far
Show AllShepard Fairey probably knew the jig was up with Obama when produced the cover art for Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine debut album, "The Audacity of Hype" in 2009.
I'm sure the tea partiers whose poster makes Obama look like Hitler are equally proud of their art.
What is the point of this article?
"What is the point of this article?"
And what has the title to do with it??? I didn't see any comments from Fairey about "Obama's Performance" - not that I care what he thinks, but someone took the time to talk to him and write the article.
"What is the point of this article?"
The point is, Shepard Fairey was sucked into the enthrallment of Obama, contributing to his camkpaign with the first poster. Soon thereafter he became enlightened - didn't take long, did it? - and produced a poster with the opposite message as the first. It's Fairey's way saying: Yes, I, too, was a victim of the Great American Duping.
"did you actually buy all that schtick about Obama being a 'community organizer'"
He looked like one, talked like one. Cooool!
"Farley,did you actually buy all that schtick about Obama being a 'community organizer'?"
Yes, he bought it. Millions bought it. We know this, it is said a hundred times a day on this site alone.
I find the whole thing an interesting lesson on the channeling of people using "electoral theater" (not political, which is something different). I imagine the use and are constantly upgrading a secret technical manual, a how to on "Moving the Herd Forward in the 21st Century." It's a learning experience!
Oh ocme on now. Unless you didn't print the relevant quote, I don't see where he says he's not pleased with the President's performance. Unless you want to blame Obama for the two-party system your hype is misleading. Oh that's right -- everything that you don't like is Obama's fault.
My real comment is - I don't care what some artist has to say about something he knows nothing about.
"Underground spirit of his Obey stickers and posters"? Please! Fairey hasn't been underground since the mid-90's. They sell (or used to, at least) Obey clothing at Nordstrom. He's managed to sell himself as an outsider while being a run-of-the-mill corporate schill almost as well as American Apparel's Dov Charney. Or Barack Obama.
"I'm very proud of the Obama poster ... because it's an image that showed that someone outside of mainstream politics, outside of corporate lobbyists could do something that affected what's going on in politics..."
Outside of mainstream politics? He was a U.S. Senator, and a conventional inside the Beltway senator.
The reason people see so many different Obama's is because he is charismatic person. He projects a mental image that is personal to the receiver.
obomber IS a murdering puppet for the fascist amerikan empire; amerikas war crimes just continue ! obummers "hope" was nuthin but hopeless !
Shepard Fairey can make an easy change to update his Obama "HOPE" poster. He can change the "H" to an "N". Obama - NOPE!
Hope is fine. Hope in Obama is probably like hoping that the fox will stop eating the chickens.
Paul Street's next book is called The Empire’s New Clothes: Barack Obama in the Real World of Power (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, July/August 2010)
It will be a book-length elaboration on your very good point about Obama's role.
See more at:
http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/paulstreet
I have to tell you, this article kind of blew me away:
http://www.zcommunications.org/a-comeback-for-chattel-slavery-remarkable-revelations-from-a-top-obama-aide-by-paul-street
"Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official hastened to add that Obama’s “vision on this” remains “color-blind and post-racial.” The program might initially target inner-city blacks, but the White House’s program would “ultimately reach out in a spirit of inclusion to Latinos, Asians, and poor Caucasians.”
The Roman Empire had a multi-racial approach to slavery, didn't it? Although most of the slaves initially came via conquest of other nations and many were often highly-educated. That won't be the case in the Empire of America.
Is this article reliable?
What an opportunistic fraud Shepard is...
Read this:
Shepard Fairey's Obama: The Politics of Rebranding the Corporate State, and the Status of the Empire
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2009/05/227407_comment.php
Malatesta1936, I responded a bit late to your post at:
malatesta1936 April 24th, 2010 10:23 pm
at the Jensen article:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/23-4
I say that just in case you didn't see it and wanted to. It is too bad we don't have some kind of comment notification. I was late. Sorry.
Of course, you can post something there, or email me at earthianguy@aol.com if you like. I supported your diagnosis and attempted to elaborate on the parameters of solutions . . .
Proud of the 0 poster?
I guess crow still tastes as bad as it did so many times. It's fine Fairey owns up to his art. He might retain some credibility if he also owned up to his mistake.
Obama was bought by Wall Street and the GOP,- handed the same Bush Script, used as a puppet to toss around until the Gop finds someone to win in 2012. Prescott Bush tried for a Fascist coup in 1933, his grandson almost gave us Bushism, so perhaps it will be Beckism, Palinism, or perhaps Bushism with another Bush elected in 2012.
"Hope-artist" sort of like con-artist. That pretty much sums up old Barry.
Check out the little video the DNC just released to rally the troops for 2010. You can kinda tell even Obama doesn't buy his own BS anymore. Sad.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0410/Obama_seeks_to_reconnectyoung_people_AfricanAmerins_Latinos_and_women_for_2010.html
Change ended on Nov. 24, 2008 when Obama appointed Larry Summers his top economic adviser.
On this day, the president decided to give the guy who crashed the plane another plane.
Stupid.
Fool!! "I told you so!"
Stop voting Repub and dem!!!!
That's it!!
Everyone gets used, but to be proud of it is, well, not the right emotion.
Artists should stay on the edge of dissent. That's the lesson here. Obama is a disaster, a corporate shill. Admitting it may help some, but Fairey has left us with a mixed message that isn't really helping his image. I think he's trying to say that he's open for further corporate remake "jobs."
-TIA
Unwittingly, this Fairey may one day make an interesting footnote, not for the icon itself, but for its formal place in a larger cultural and historical scheme.
In 2008 the corporate America masterfully marketed a black man as a candidate of ‘Hope and Change’.
Once in office President Obama appointed Robert Gates as Defense Secretary, and Lawrence Summers to the National Economic Council, and kept Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve.
Recently, Evo Morales asked what difference he saw between Bush and Obama correctly answered color of the skin.
Evo Morales is indeed, as was observed to me a bit ago, kickass.
shepard has the talent to appropriate the great works of other people, and pass it off as his own. he justifies by saying that it is mashup, and that is the new aesthetic...blah blah blah. he stole an image by rene mederos, a great cuban graphic artist, and after he was called on it, he excused himself by claiming that since rene was in cuba, he could not contact him to ask him for permission, and share the greens (at that time his estate, since rene died in 1996). shepard fairy is colonialism disguised as art. obama is imperialism, and fairey is his court painter.
Warhol understood an important aspect of Duchamp that few have noticed.
He then exploited it mercilessly, and not without originality, wit, and a degree of intensification that brought it close to completion.
He also quite cynically, and with infectious gaiety, monetarized what was deobjectified--which added another level of irony.
Aesthetically the Obama icon is strictly derivative Warhol, but now seemingly mainstream to begin with.
It comes full circle, leaving Duchamp far in the lead as the greatest artistic genius of the Twenty-FIRST Century still.
And the next move?
Mum's the word.
1) X + icon status to ICON.
2) Y + ICON status to icon.
Q.E.D.
I find it wholly appropriate that this guy Fairey, which this article alludes to him saying that he's not overjoyed about Obama's performance as President, is the same person who created a piece of artwork based off off an actual Associated Press photo then denied it when confronted of the fact, but then later admitted it and saying he'd 'made a mistake in denying it'.
Lies, opportunistic greed, misrepresentation, and glory seeking..........seems like Fairy and Obama are quite made for each other if you ask me.
Shepard stole just about everything he has ever done. He is a fraud, a thief, and a no-talent ass clown that seeks fame and fortune by butt-sniffing the likes of Obama.
Obey Plagiarist Shepard Fairey
A critique by artist Mark Vallen
Published on the occasion of Fairey’s Los Angeles solo exhibition, Dec., 2007.
http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Obey/index.htm
What you say may be true--but it is irrelevant to the fact that the icon is Che Guevara turned inside out in a derivative Warholesque mode.
The artist is of no matter one way or another.
And you will be happy to know that this is an important sign of the utter emptiness of the icon-makers and their iconology.