The Problem with Shepard Fairey
Shepard Fairey’s much hyped Institute for Contemporary Arts show, “Supply and Demand”, probably never would have happened without the new president. But that famous image fails as anything more than a reminder. It is not that it borrows so obviously from communist propaganda design, but because it doesn’t transcend its source of inspiration.
There is nothing about it to communicate that this is about 2008, and there’s an election in America, a country deeply fearful, frustrated, and cynical. It is as it looks: a Dear Leader-like swoon….which could work only if you interpret it at it as a self-mocking, self-aware rub at “drinking the Obama kool-aid.” However, the poster came out early in the primaries, before thousands of people stood in queues to hear him speak. Fairey himself admits the famous Che Guevara image was a major source of inspiration.
True, it is an inspired choice of image of Obama. He is captured exactly as we like to think of him: looking caring, but just a bit distant and analytical. That is precisely why people who really like Obama tend to really like Shepard Fairey’s Obama poster.
Now that the right person for the job ended up the White House, it’s worth pointing out Tony Puryear’s poster of Hillary Clinton was a hell of a lot better:
Puryear is also taking inspiration from propaganda posters, but by using a photograph, rather than illustration, it moves beyond its source. It mocks the Communist propaganda that was the inspiration. You can see the lines on Clinton’s face, she looks relaxed. She radiates warmth as much as power and intellect. She’s a human being, not an icon.
There is a twist to the Clinton image. But with Shepard Fairey, what you see is what you get.
Before the Boston show opened, Fairey came to town to wheatpaste images, mostly around Harvard Square. The first one I noticed, was outside the Gap. At first glance, I thought the Gap commissioned it. It’s next to the door and looks “urban” but in a way that wouldn’t scare the suburbanites off from buying socks and down jackets. It is intricate, but so totally inoffensive, it is virtually indistinguishable from contemporary jeans advertising. Positioned by a store front, it only looks like an extension of the store.
Image of Fairey in front of the Gap from ICA’s Flickr
What’s the point of street art that only encourages more foot traffic at the Gap? Was the Saks campaign pro bono too? I don’t have a problem with artists doing commercial work to pay the bills, but if and when you do work for free, why not make something that doesn’t look like the Gap commissioned you to do it?
And before someone comments that the wheatpaste is all about the juxtaposition and its placement in the city and the street — hold on.
It communicates nothing in the context of this space. For the non-Cantabrigians: Harvard Square is Boston’s equivalency of Santa Monica. Nor is it more of the They Live-inspired non-advertising like the Andre the Giant stuff.It’s a poster in front of a Gap that looks like the Gap paid him a few grand to put up.
If you aren’t easily frustrated by visually interesting things which can only be considered at surface level, you may enjoy his ICA show. Otherwise you’ll likely get annoyed by many parts of it.
An entire room is filled with about 40 screen printed images of Joe Strummer, Tupac, Lou Reed, Ian MacKaye, even, good lord, Henry fucking Rollins. As the ICA explains, “Fairey’s graphic style, which takes celebrity portraits and transforms them into iconic cool, is a perfect fit for the music industry.” There’s nothing to the images. The design is nothing above what you’d see in Spin magazine. Is it an attempted visualization of the “favorite music” section in Fairey’s Myspace profile? Or is he really this low concept?
Another room has as a quote, “I use figures in my work who I feel are used and abused as symbols, but without telling the viewer how to feel about them.” And to be honest, the image of Angela Davis is just that. He illustrates her from a unique angle. It’s a dramatic image, but, while I wrote down in my notebook to praise it, I now can hardly remember what it looks like or why I liked it in the first place. Nor can I whole-heartedly recommend my favorite piece in the show — Commanda. It’s an image of a veiled ambiguously Asian/Persian woman holding a spraycan furtively, with the cap facing forward about to be pressed. It’s nice. It’s clever. It’s kinda like something Banksy would do but with lots of pretty embellishments.
As a political street artist, it’s hard not to compare him with Banksy. But Banksy couldn’t possibly create work as moving as he does without staying well-informed of politics. Fairey’s work makes you wonder if he even quite knows what’s going on in the Middle East or what Guantánamo Bay even is. What Fairey communicates about politics is apathy and a vague directionless feeling of dissent. The ornate details that set him apart may add prettiness but no depth to his work.
I was tempted to title this post “Rubylith without a cause,” because that seems very much like a Shepard Fairey pun. Like his fake currency that says says “No Cents” on it. Or the title of the show: “Supply and Demand.” Is this all a commentary on the recession/international economics/ geopolitical risk? Naw, man.
A gallery assistant played up Fairey’s attention to detail, pointing to how precisely the rubyliths were carved with an X-acto. And that’s about right, Fairey does seem to be a perfectionist. But a workhorse isn’t always a great visionary. And his art mostly deals with politics, the limits to his vision are made obvious.
You can find art right down the hall that combines beauty, ferocious attention to detail, and a clear, eloquent, unmistakable political message: Paul Chan’s 1st light (hands down the ICA’s finest piece in their permanent collection). It’s not like artists can’t be both. While a hardworker and gifted graphic artist, Shepard Fairey’s show is verging on boring.
John Maeda author of Laws of Simplicity is now President of the Rhode Island School of Design. “RISD is MIT for the right brain,” he tells the WSJ. “Everyone asks me, ‘Are you bringing technology to RISD?’ I tell them, no, I’m bringing RISD to technology.” The article says he spends an hour a day blogging “unmediated” — “so you get the real me, typos, spelling mistakes, you name it.” (via.)
I was hoping someone would scan the old paperback copy of Camp Concentration, as it is one of my favorite covers in SF I’ve long since lost my original. Jeff VanderMeer has done so (he just picked it up at used bookshop this morning.) Plus he urges readers to buy up every copy they can and pass it along, “If you have the time, post a photo of the books you bought, and then post a link to your blog post on the last entry on Disch’s blog. It’s a little like laying flowers on a gravestone. A sign of respect and appreciation.” There’s no reason for a writer this good to continue on so long in obscurity. Ed Champion has posted his podcast interview as well a bunch of other things and wrote a tribute for NY magazine.
Taxi Driver isn’t what Paul Schrader considers his best work. My favorite podcaster, Erin Donovan reviews Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters for GreenCine. It’s an awesome but little watched movie, with stylistic details I’m surprised no one’s ripped off since: “Schrader translates the four chapters of Mishima’s story (Beauty, Art, Action, Harmony of Pen & Sword) in three different styles: traditional black and white filmstock shot on locked-down cameras for memories, hyperreal theatrical productions for Mishima’s written works and the final day of Mishima’s life in loose, cinema-verite style.” Amazing poster art too.
Is this a joke? Entertainment Weekly attempts to list the 25 “best book covers” since 1983. But not a single one of these covers is memorable (and don’t expect to see for yourself from the article, EW inexplicably didn’t include any images to accompany the text.) Really A Million Little Pieces and The Handmaid’s Tale? High Fidelity? Prep?!?!?!?!? Did they just pick up books at random and input the ISBN numbers? This list is like saying Banana Republic and Old Navy have the most innovative fashion designers on the planet. Ok, Jimmy Corrigan is a good cover (obviously,) but if we’re going to throw in a graphic novelist for cool points, why not Black Hole? Chip Kidd is listed several times, but for the worst examples of his work. ICA had an entire wall of his book covers at their Design Life Now show and not one of those is on this list (He’s designed over 800 covers.) Here are some of his better designs. And regardless of what you think of McSweeny’s titles, they do graphic design right: I almost thought about buying How We Are Hungry just for the cover, even though I knew it would annoy me. Chris Adrian’s The Child’s Hospital is incredible both hardcover and paperback. Shelley Jackson designed her own cover and it’s lovely. I rather like the cover of All The Sad Literary Men too. Here are great book covers that came out just in the past year.
First the Obama campaign won the designers. Shepard Fairey’s prints raised over $400k. “Progress” by Scott Hansen is also a beautiful poster. Here’s a Flickr group showing Obama street art — a mix of wheatpastings and graffiti. I really like this one, influenced by Ray Noland. His Obama campaign posters are even in a traveling art show. There’s a website Artists for Hillary, but looking at it as objectively as I can, I’m not impressed. I do like this design Wonkette used to illustrate a post — but the artist is unknown. I almost wonder if it is the work of a magazine art department for a feature story and independent of her campaign (Update 6/5: it’s Tony Puryear’s design and was sold on her site. Here’s Frieze magazine on campaign art. Worth a look just to see the adorable Marc Jacobs HRC tshirt. And LA Weekly finds graffiti that puts it this week in perspective.)
A gallery of earthquake-related public service ads for the Red Cross Society of China. (via.)
From Youtube, a piece on the history of the CBS eye logo. (via)
Did Urban Outfitters steal your Etsy crafts? “You thought we wouldn’t notice” is “a site dedicated to pointing out those thing’s that give you that feeling of ‘haven’t l seen that somewhere before?’” There’s no place for writers to point out possible lifting of ideas, but there is Angry Journalist.
-
A collection of interesting ideas curated by
Joanne McNeil. About ➚
Sponsors
