These are a few pieces made from the infamous-influential street artist Frank Shepard Fairey. On the left is his famous "André the Giant Has a Posse" Obey sticker campaign and on the right is Barack Obama's "hope" poster for the 2008 presidential election. I first stumbled upon his work when I was looking through Columbia College Library art books. There were two books that had pages and pages of his work describing his life and how he came to be who he is now. It was an interesting insight on how unknown graffiti artist become so famous when their artworks were vandalism. I was drawn to his use of bold red and white use of colors and meaning behind his work. They were simple and clean. I was surprised to find one of the Giant Obey sticker off the CTA redline Belmont stop. You can see it on the upper right hand corner of a near by building in front of the station. I have never noticed it until earlier this year while riding back home from work even though I have gone past the Belmont stop many times in previous years for school. Now when I get off at Belmont, it's hard for me not to notice it because it's right in front of you while your waiting for your train.
Did you hear about the lawsuit he had over the original picture used for his Obama poster a few months ago?
ReplyDeleteShepard Fairey makes t-shirts and calls it street art
ReplyDeletethat's not fair to say... Obey has a really cool propaganda style of art. I really like some of his gallery stuff of this kind of communist revolutionary's with ak47s. His repetitive style of showing the same image on a wall is really intense. Like if you see that same Andre the Giant one over and over again on one wall
ReplyDeleteHeard he had a gallery at Navy Pier earlier this year.
ReplyDeleteThe Obama poster controversy was a huge issue. Though it became a very iconic picture of Obama and of the 2008 campaign, its always good to watch out with whatever images you are using for your artwork.
I've followed Shepard Fairy's work for quite some time now, I think the Obama posters are two often the topic of conversation when he is brought up (mostly because that's all people know about him) although ironically he has been one of the most vocal graffiti artists out there. For example he should be known for the methods he was able to engineer to apply his art quickly and quietly. For example for most of his large graffiti pieces (particularly the illegal ones) he glues pre-printed canvas to walls in a method similar to how billboards used to be put up.
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