By Judi McLeod ——Bio and Archives--February 8, 2009
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Before a porkulus-pushing President Obama can throw poster propagandist Shepard Fairey, *under the bus*, can Obama handlers do something about the personal Thank You letter sent to him by the 44th president of the United States?
Hucksterism, shilled from the lampposts and abandoned buildings in legions of American cities, is a big part of what will someday be recorded in history as “The Fable of Barack Obama.
Poster propaganda king Shepard Fairey is described by Charleston City Paper as “the man responsible for the single most iconic image of the 2008 presidential campaign”.
Arrested at Denver’s DNC for pasting posters to buildings, “once he was released, Fairey got back to work, being the point-man in what to some might seem like a one-man campaign to get Barack Obama into the White House.” (Charleston City Paper, Oct. 8, 2008).
“I did a lot of very mainstream middle America type press events where I was very careful how I chose my words to not be inflammatory and be positive,” Fairey says. “Then I went out doing my postering around town like I always do--punk as f**k, I like that I can navigate those two worlds and be able to do both. That’s important to me.
“And how Fairey navigates those two worlds is apparently A-OK with the Obama campaign. In fact, the Los Angeles-based artist received a letter from Obama himself.
It reads in part, “Dear Shepherd, I would like to thank you for using your talent in support of my campaign. The political messages involved in your work have encouraged Americans to believe they can help change the status quo. Your images have a profound effect on people, whether seen in a gallery or on a stop sign.”
But it’s not for doing a poster allegedly copied from an AP photo elevating Obama to cult leader level that got Fairey spending time in the hoosegow.
Accused of tagging property with graffiti from his early career, Fairey is scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Brighton District Court.
With his trademark red, white and blue “Hope” posters of Obama plastered on the lampposts and buildings of American cities, Fairey did more to get Obama elected president than even the fawning mainstream media did.
Before postering Obama to household word fame, Fairey was King of Street Bogeyman art. Creator of the “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” sticker, he’s the guerilla marketing vandal behind the Soviet constructive-inspired Obey Giant campaign.
In the outside world of the contemporary streetscape, there are arguably as many Obama Hope posters on all Main Street lampposts and abandoned buildings as there are Lost Pet posters. In the privacy of the inside world, every Obama fan has a poster purchased from Fairey’s website or e-Bay adorning a bedroom or basement wall.
Is Shepard Fairey just a fast buck artist or the “very thoroughly capitalist” he claims to be with no political leanings of any kind?
According to Charleston City Paper, “When Fairey designed the Hope poster, he wanted it to embrace a group different from his normal audience of skate punks, taggers and ad-busing anarchists. He says, `Obama needs to seem moderate and safe enough for people in the middle class to embrace. I didn’t want to make an image that would be circulated among the hard-core Obama supporters. I wanted an image that might pique the curiosity of the curious centrist.
“`What I think the image did was become a symbolic reference point that allowed Obama supporters to see that someone was being vocal and that encouraged a chain reaction,’ Fairey says. `I think that’s the power of an image. It’s something that’s easily digestible and memorable that can be symbolic of something that’s a lot deeper, that’s more complex and more profound.’’”
And from Fairey’s website: “I believe with great conviction that Barack Obama should be the next President. I have been paying close attention to him since the Democratic convention in 2004. I feel that he is more a statesman than a politician. He was against the war when it was an unpopular position (and Hillary was for the war at that time), Obama is for energy and environmental conservation. He is for healthcare reform. Check him out for yourself: barackobama.com. Proceeds from this print go to produce prints for a larger statewide poster campaign.”
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Critics in the art world, weighing in on Fairey’s work include Meghan Baum, a writer for the L.A. Times, who said, “There’s an unequivocal sense of idol worship about the image, a half-artsy, half-creepy genuflection, that suggests the subject is (a) a Third world dictator whose rule is enmeshed in a seductive cult of personality, (b), a controversial American figure who’s been assassinated, or (c) one of those people from a Warhol silk-screen that you don’t recognize but assume to be important in an abstruse way.”
In Obey Plagiarist Shepard Fairey, here, a critique by artist Mark Vallen, published on the occasion of Fairey’s Los Angeles solo exhibition, December 2007, Vallen documents how “Fairey has developed a successful career through expropriating and recontextualizing the artworks of others.”
Meanwhile, plain street art hucksterism helped pave the way to the White House for President Barack Obama.
The Hope out on the campaign trail was shown up for hucksterism within one month of election.
And Change? It’s coming this week in an approved Stimulus package.
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