Shepard Fairey: Visionaries & Trendsetters of 2012

Taking A Risk For Politics:

The year 2012 has been just as epic as 2008 when Barack Obama was elected as the first African American president of the United States of America. During the 2008 electoral campaign, people wanted to take action and promote the candidate they were rooting for. Obama fans took to the complied artwork of Shepard Fairey to voice their political opinions. Being heavily into politics, Fairey created a piece of art that would say what others were thinking yet bring controversy. This piece was made in 2008, which led to its use in the 2012 election, and is now a part of history today. Fairey was only voicing his opinions the best way that he knew how, through art.

According to huffingtonpost.com, Fairey is widely known for his creation of the “HOPE” posters featuring President Barack Obama. The artwork was circulating throughout the 2008 presidential electoral campaign. Even though the artwork was assembled based off Fairey’s personal thoughts and views on politics at the time, he unknowingly encouraged others to purchase or promote his artwork. Fairey explains how he accumulated this particular piece of work, “I wanted it to have a stylistic connection to my other work, so I didn’t use the typical red, white, and blue…I worked with different shades of blue so the image had that patriotic feel. I wanted to make an image that deracialized Obama, where he’s not a black man, but a nationalized man,” he tells interviewmagazine.com.

What many didn’t know was that Fairey’s artwork is based off a portrait taken by news service photographer, Mannie Garcia in 2006 which later led to a lawsuit with the Associated Press over the unauthorized use of the photograph. Fairey felt he was doing no wrong according to the First Amendment rights. His use of the image would be justified as the act of fair use but later tried to destroy the use of his original artwork and just simply insert an extra wrinkle. Therefore, he can testify that Garcia’s image was used as a reference when creating the piece.

Fairey didn’t see any harm in referencing an image. He shares how other images and artwork can help create a new piece that may prolong its popularity and expand to a larger audience. “It’s about making a work that is inspired by something preexisting but changes it to have a new value and meaning that doesn’t in any way take away from the original- and, in fact, might provide the original with a second life or a new audience,” he said. Unfortunately, the U.S. District Courts in Manhattan felt otherwise and requested Fairey face a maximum prison term of six months but Judge Frank Maas sentenced Fairey to two years probation and 300 hours of community service considering the history of charitable work and letters of support submitted by family and friends of Fairey.

Before Fairey gained fame for his “HOPE” artwork he was most known in the skateboarding world and the world of street art for Obey Giant campaign. The campaign contained images of late professional wrestler Andre the Giant in major cities and various places around the world. Fairey’s work is a unique combination of business and appropriation art along with pop art, graffiti and Marxist theory.

Today Fairey continues to showcase his work at art shows. In 2011 he showcased his first museum show, titled Supply and Demand, at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. This month Fairey has a new show at New York City’s Deithch Projects. He also is one of the few artists who artwork hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. Fairey may have had to overcome some obstacles in the past couple of years but he is still working his way to a higher level of success with his artwork.