Feb. 22, 2009
An Iconic Artist Of The Moment
The Creator Of The Most Famous Poster Of Campaign '08 Takes His Street Art In New Directions
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Play CBS Video Video Street Artist Honored Shepard Fairey, who created the iconic Obama Hope poster that many say was "the" image of the 2008 presidential campaign, seems to be the artist of the moment. Rita Braver reports.
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Artist Shepard Fairey created the iconic campaign poster image of Barack Obama. (CBS)
"My talent is for making a bold, beautiful, iconic graphic that is provocative," said Shepard Fairey.
He's the artist of the moment, the one who created the famous Obama poster. He first gained fame for his street art, yet his in-your-face style brimming with political angst has earned him a one-man museum retrospective at age 39.
So you might expect Fairey to be brash and a bit full of himself, but …
"The opportunity to, you know, share my work with people is what's rewarding, not so much the focus on me," he said.
In fact, Shepard Fairey is an earnest young man who seems to save his rage for his work.
"I describe my art as, you know, graphic art with social and political messages."
Like his "Greetings from Iraq," based on an old postcard of the geyser Old Faithful, with an explosion and warplanes overhead. "Whether you're a citizen of Iraq, or a U.S. soldier, it's not a pleasant place to be," he said.
Fairey's one-man show at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston features everything from wall-sized murals composed of anti-war, anti-materialism graphics, to portraits of Fairey's idols in art (Andy Warhol), politics (Malcolm X) and music (Jim Morrison).
Of course, the Obama portrait is featured prominently, along with a thank-you note from President Obama.
"'Your images have a profound effect on people, whether it's in a gallery or a stop sign,'" Fairey read. "So he's acknowledging public art."
"He's a little subversive there, too!" Braver said.
Fairey, who has been arrested some 15 times, got the campaign's permission before making the posters:
"I didn't want to be a liability to Obama, because I do have a record of being arrested for street art."
It became the image of the campaign, a Time Magazine cover, hundreds of thousands of posters, and four original collages including one just installed at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery.
Fairey says he hasn't made money off the Obama image, because he plowed profits back into producing more posters. But now he is locked in a legal battle with the Associated Press, which owns the photo on which's Fairey's creation is based … and wants to be paid.
"I think it's 'fair use' in the way that I've interpreted it," he said. "And if you look at pop art over the last 50 years, I think that reinforces that assertion."
"When you look at that image of Obama, you don't see an Associated Press photograph; you see something that is absolutely and distinctively Shephard Fairey," said Jill Medvedow, director of the Institute of Contemporary Art.
She says Fairey is just doing what many other artists (like Marcel Duchamp's moustachiod Mona Lisa, or Andy Warhol's Campbell's soup can) have done for years: "The key here is the transformation of something from its original form into something altogether different."
Medvedow says she wanted to stage a show of Fairey's work in part because he expounds on so many artistic traditions, from Soviet realism, to Andy Warhol-style multiples.
"Like many artists who have come before him, he is playing with some big issues: war and peace, propaganda, public space," Medvedow said.
(CBS)
In the early '80s he became fascinated with the professional actor and wrestler known as Andre the Giant.
"What was it about that face that somehow spoke to you?" Braver asked.
"Well, I think that the face is very unique," he said. "He at a glance was both sinister and goofy."
For years he plastered his distinctive Andre stickers and posters all over the world, often adding the word "Obey." The work developed a cult following, captured in the documentary "Andre the Giant Has a Posse."
"It was never supposed to get so big; it was just an inside joke with a friend," Fairey said.
Even Stephen Colbert paid tongue-in-cheek homage to the Andre campaign: "Until I saw these sometimes I forgot to obey. And then I'd be walking on the street and see these and think, 'Oh, yeah, obey obey what I'm told to do!'"
In fact, Fairey says it's all part of his credo: question everything:
"I wanted to get people to have to confront the concept of obedience," he said. "So I started using the word 'Obey.'"
"And question it?" Braver asked.
"Yeah."
Fairey has always challenged authority, often putting his work up clandestinely. But, along with the museum show, he was invited to put up public art all over Boston. The mayor even let him decorate City Hall.
"What's it like to be an outside artist who's suddenly welcomed by the 'inside' world?" Braver asked.
"Well, it's pretty surreal," he said.
Even more surreal when on the day of the exhibit's official opening two weeks ago, Boston police arrested Fairey on a 9-year-old warrant for putting up unauthorized art. He pled not guilty, but still faces further court action.
"I can justify my work, as you know, part of an extension of the concept of free speech. It's not appropriate for only advertisers to occupy, you know, the graphic communication of public space."
(Fox )
"I'd be starving or unable to proliferate my work if I didn't have some source of income," he said.
And today with his Obama poster everywhere, Shepard Fairey seems poised for the kind of fame few American artists have achieved in recent years.
Braver asked museum director Jill Medvedow if his work will hold up in another 25, 50, or 100 years?
"I think so," she replied. "I think that these images are going to end up as some of the iconic images of the beginning of the 21st century."
Braver asked Fairey if he hopes people will think of him as the right artist for his time?
"Yeah, I would hope so I don't think I could hope for anything better than that!" he laughed. "I think that'd be pretty great."
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- This is the second Sunday in a row that a grafiti criminal has been glorified.
In New Mexico the following statistics are a staggering reminder that his is a crime not art.
6,500: Pieces of graffiti cleaned up by city work crews last year
$230,000: Cost of graffiti abatement program
10: Shades of paint available for city property owners to cover graffiti, including six that are brownish
97: Percentage of people in an English city who voted to keep an unauthorized piece of street art on a sidewalk
32 months: Maximum jail time possible for a 22-year-old awaiting prosecution on four graffiti misdemeanor charges
7: Cans of gray paint used to create Aztec images on a mural at Warehouse 21 in Santa Fe Railyard
1: Gallon of free paint available per year, per household from Santa Fe County for graffiti cleanup.
9: Gangs in Dona Ana County New Mexico alone tag with graffiti (if it ends with a K it means Killer.
Please go back to knowledgable stories I love.
Please stop glorifying a crime. - Reply to this comment
- Why would CBS celebrate an artist who admits he stole the original photo?
Copyright infringement is serious business, and something a lot of photographers are fighting. Yet here CBS is, acting like this guy did something wonderful. Are you that nice if somebody steals your shows, I wonder?
If he were a true artist, he could have done it without the theft. Shame on you guys. - Reply to this comment
- Art is a form of expression and while people portray their art in inappropriate places, I think 'graffiti' is still beautiful. Along the lines of graffiti, there are several forms. Of course, gang tagging is ugly, and I too wish it wasn't around. If you researched art, you would know that many artists of their time were scrutinized for their form of expression as being inappropriate, and not appreciated until many years later and even after their death. If it wasn%u2019t for those artists who abandoned the mold, I would hate to see what kind of main stream art there would be. Finally, if graffiti is vandalism, look at it in an anthropological perspective. If you are open-minded enough, you can draw a correlation between cavemen drawings and graffiti now. What makes one right and the other wrong? Shepard Fairey is an artist.
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- While I think that the poster was a great campaign poster, I'm not sure that qualifies it as art. When I first saw it, the Orwellian undertones made me think that the creator was mocking Obama, not campaigning for him. But maybe I am reading too much into it. PEACE, HOPE, ART. It is called it, so it must be true.
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- This is the second recent story profiling so-called Street/Graffiti %u201CArtist%u201D. Why would anyone refer to VANDALISM as %u201CART??? Drive around Los Angeles downtown freeways and you will see VANDALISM. Even true public-art is constantly being VADALIZED. %u201CNews%u201D media should call it by its true term %u201CVANDALISM%u201D. When anyone defaces someone else%u2019s property it is a CRIME, NOT %u201CART%u201D. I have been a long time viewer of both CBS News and %u201CSunday Morning%u201D (which is usually a great show). But the last two shows are causing me to rethink that. If anyone @ CBS has experienced any of their own property being VANDALIZED, they might think twice of glorifying GRAFFITI. Has any one of these %u201Cartist%u201D ever gone back and paid restitution for the cost of the damage they did?
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