Shepard Fairey:
Propaganda, and the Preempting of Criticism
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Shepard Fairey. Mural outside the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH, 2010. Staff Photo.
Shepard Fairey. Mural outside the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH, 2010. Staff Photo.
It is opportune that the Contemporary Arts Center is currently hosting Shepard Fairey's 'Supply and Demand,' as the outreach and marketing needs of the CAC are in sync with the artist's broad-based demographic appeal.
A brief stroll into the CAC inundates the senses. Fairey's massive mural covers the entryway support column, immediately filling one's vision with warm red /orange hues and strong black lines. A giant female figure defiantly gazes outward. On the second floor, the first vision here is a wall covered with smaller framed poster prints (or originals?) of his oeuvre. The same colors fill the gaze, strongly contrasted with black: the works are nearly monochrome. Compositions are evident in the style of, or taken directly from, art nouveaux, left-wing political posters, Peter Max psychedelia, and agitprop-style government propaganda.
I personally felt a dual connection to this work. I recalled my frequent visits to Harvard Square, in Cambridge, MA, over twenty years ago. At this time, Fairey had already begun his covering of the region with the early form of his Obey stickers. I noticed them everywhere, and wondered what they were about. When I learned last year that he was also the author of the Obama campaign sign, I was deeply pleased by the memory and association.
Shepard Fairey. Print Grid, Grid of 90 screen prints, each 24x18 inches, Courtesy of Obey Giant Art, Photo Credit: John Kennard, courtesy of the Contemporary Arts Center.
Here, too, in the exhibit at the Contemporary Arts Center, I encountered another aspect of my background. Fairey's images are heavily composed by the re-use of posters, advertisements, and propaganda imagery from the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the former Soviet Union, and other left political movements that are difficult to identify (though partially so in his book Supply and Demand). My personal connection here was from my undergraduate studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. My major was philosophy doubled with a left-wing, Marxist-inspired, broad-based liberal arts major called STPEC (Social Thought and Political Economy). We studied thinkers from Fanon to Tocqueville, Marx to Marcuse, always surrounded by the kind of left-wing paraphernalia collected by the still-defiant ex-hippies (or not ex?) that organized, and taught for, the program.
Hence to be surrounded at the CAC with such imagery, the hand of the artist of the Harvard Square stickers, and the range of warm tones, was a strangely comforting experience, even in the peculiar coldness of Hadid's architecture. But as I studied his work, and consulted later articles about him, I grew concerned by the valid issues surrounding Fairey's use of others' imagery in his own artwork, as well as his employment of precisely the methodology that he claims to critique.
Shepard Fairey. Mural outside Arnold's Bar & Grill, 210 East 8th Street, Cincinnati, OH, 2010. Staff Photo.
The First Issue: Versus the Associated Press
By now it is commonplace to cite his use of Manny Garcia's photo of Barack Obama's head for his campaign poster. The case brought to him by the Associated Press, though, is still not resolved. David NG of The Los Angeles Times reported on October 16th last year that Fairey "knowingly submitted false images and deleted others in the legal proceedings, in an attempt to conceal the fact that the AP had correctly identified the photo that Fairey had used as a reference for his "Hope" poster of then-Sen. Barack Obama." Fairey is cited in the paper in his formal statement:
"While I initially believed that the photo I referenced was a different one, I discovered early on in the case that I was wrong. In an attempt to conceal my mistake I submitted false images and deleted other images."
Shepard Fairey. Obey Angela Davis, 2005, Mixed media silk screen collage on paper, hand painted multiple, 44x30 in. Courtesy of Obey Giant Art and the Contemporary Arts Center.In the same statement, Fairey is quick to make note that he is still a freedom fighter for the use of Fair Use images in the arts. On his site he states, "I am fighting the AP to protect the rights of all artists, especially those with a desire to make art with social commentary. This is about artistic freedom and basic rights of free expression, which need to be available to all, whether they have money and lawyers or not." A strange argument (or sound byte), considering that the AP case is about intellectual property—something that protects artists. I was already witnessing the tactics of the corporate damage-control spokesperson: apologize, but put spin on your case to keep the community on your side. Significantly, soon after Fairey admitted to wrongdoing, his legal team, led by Anthony Falzone (of Stanford University's Fair Use Project ) withdrew their support. The Los Angeles Times again reported on January 26, 2010 that Fairey "would be facing a criminal investigation in connection with his admitted misconduct."
Could the legal issues here also implicate an institution that hosts his work? The Contemporary Art Center is hosting a similar Obama Hope artwork on display on the third floor without any mention of the legal battle around it. Some institutions have included the Garcia photo next to the Fairey image, and informed their viewers of the issue at hand. Was the staff and board aware of the legal issues surrounding Shepard Fairey before agreeing to host Fairey's work? I raise this as a question, since I do not have the answer.
Shepard Fairey. Mural outside HighStreet, 1401 Reading Road, Cincinnati, OH, 2010. Staff Photo.
Fair Use: Warhol and Lichtenstein
The above debate revolves around the difference between Fair Use of an image in the public domain, and the way an artist is allowed to use it in his or her own work. One claims the freedom of the artist to take a work, transform it by their own hand, and make it into a new form; the other, based on the standards of ethical scholarship, believes that any use of intellectual property without some referencing to the source is plagiarism. This is a huge issue today, with Fairey right in the middle. It is further confused by the presence of media and information sites like Wikipedia, in which unknown authors provide free material.
Shepard Fairey. Guns and Roses Stencil, 2007, Retired stencil and collage on paper, 44x30 in. Photo courtesy of Chloe Gordon and the Contemporary Arts Center.
Mark Vallen, an artist, wrote a scathing attack on Fairey in his online article, 'Obey Plagiarist Shepard Fairey' on Dec. 2007 (to read Vallen's article, click here; to read Jamie O'Shea's response, a friend and collaborator of Fairey, click here; to read Brian Sherwin's response to Jamie O'Shea, click here). One of Vallen's main issues, and one with which I concur, is that Fairey does not transform the images he utilizes. To do so without citation is plagiarism. To take images, add nice backgrounds and then insert one's own brand (the Obey Giant) is too much of a direct copy. Fortunately for Fairey, Vallen's issues are heavily about Fairey's earlier work; additionally, Fairey cites now many of his sources in his catalog. However, the catalog is hardly accessible to everyone at nearly $60. Why not use his popular site for the dissemination of this information?
Nevertheless, Fairey's image sources are troublesome mainly because of their exotic or relatively unfamiliar (to white North Americans) source. This is another point made by Vallen. It is the fundamental difference between Fairey's work and the oft-cited-in-his-defense antecedents: Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.
Lichtenstein reproduced comic images in his work, almost exactly as they first appeared. Hence Fairey, one may argue, follows in this artistic tradition. But Lichtenstein's use of imagery was critical in a way that Fairey's is not. Lichtenstein meant to heighten our awareness of the cliche (from an interview in 1966 by David Sylvester in New York City for broadcast by BBC Third Programme) of contemporary imagery. The viewer was familiar with Lichtenstein's images, but were discombobulated by the content and visual ordering of the unexpected phrases accompanying them. So also with Warhol; by reproducing images of, say, Marilyn Monroe, Warhol was able to aestheticize a product that had become part of mass marketing. He subverted it, through his messy approach to the craft of screen reproduction. The typical viewer of today in North America often will not recognize many of the images that Fairey is using. A naive viewer may even think that Fairey is revolutionary, since his art utilizes such.
Shepard Fairey. Mural by 13th St. and Main, Over-The-Rhine, Cincinnati, OH, 2010. Staff Photo.
Vallen also argues that Fairey aestheticizes images that are not part of mass media. Some had their origin in the form of protesters posting them on walls. In that form they are part of the public domain. Then, in Fairey's hands, they become his work: legally copywritten, commercially available, no longer fair use. The re-contextualization, if we may so call it, is not radical in the way they first appeared, despite the artists' claims.
When Fairey is the creator of his source imagery, he can claim complete authorship, such as in his statement from his web site: "I use my own family members as models, taking my own photos of them to illustrate from such as Vivi La Revolucion and Commanda." Also, when he collaborates consciously with other willing photographers, he can very simply avoid all issues of appropriation. My understanding is that much of Fairey's work of recent years in fact does this.
However, even in such instances, there are cases in which I have another issue. There are two visual approaches at work in some, if not most, of the compositions of Fairey: the first is the pretty effect of his colors and collage patterns (plus his moniker added—the famous Obey symbol from deceased wrestler Andre the Giant), the second the actual image and text. Their union represents the methodology of propaganda and marketing.
Second Issue: The Pretty and the Political
It is easiest to explain this by way of a strong example; in this case his work Duality of Humanity 4 (2006). This work resulted from a collaboration with Al Rockoff, immortalized for his valiant efforts to document the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge in the film The Killing Fields (1984; he was played by John Malcovich). The photo from which Duality of Humanity 4 is copied depicts a teenage soldier under the regime. It is, politically and morally, an image that refers to a real atrocity that occurred. The child soldier is the ultimate symbol of the death of the human spirit. Instead of study and play, the opportunity to grow into his own unique individuality, this child is reduced to the generalized status of a soldier.
When an adult assumes this role for his or her country, it is a conscious act of sacrifice; when it is thrust upon a child, it is an immense loss to the human spirit, both individually and collectively. We imagine here the loss to universal culture to which this child could have contributed, had his unique potential been developed. Perhaps this child, in a different setting, would have been a Mozart or Michelangelo. The Khmer Rouge trained these child soldiers to kill, lay mines, and worship the state.
The Composition Gallery, an entity that hosted Fairey's work, quotes Fairey's accurate observations about Rockoff's work on its web site : "Al Rockoff's photos reveal the brutality, but also the conflicted humanity seen in war." However, in Fairey's rendition, the image is beautiful to behold: stunning patterns (apparently derived from Persian carpetry) fill the background. The left side of the figure is cast as a psychedelic sunburst, with background touches of the Obey figures. The problem isn't the colors, patterns, etc.; it is the contradiction of beautifying something that is terrible and tragic. Note here the criticism typically launched against Hollywood: the aestheticization of violence in popular films. How can one speak of creating work that is revolutionary or critical when the visual aesthetics of it are in contradiction to the message? The message is diluted; like so many others of its ilk, generalized under the same Fairey aesthetic.
Shepard Fairey. Mural outside Lightborne, Inc., 14th St., Cincinnati, OH, 2010. Staff Photo.
A second distortion here will be when these images are seen in their original form for the first time by the naive viewer (e.g., someone may never have seen the Rockoff photo): instead of having a socially critical potency to them, they will recall the attractive Fairey poster that used it. This is far more likely to happen to the younger generation that grew up in the demise of the old Soviet Union. Try Googling images of Al Rockoff, and you will see Fairey images appear as thumbnails along with Rockoff's originals. If Google is the principle method in which so much information is located and disseminated, Rockoff's work will now be inextricably linked to Fairey posters. It is a coup for Fairey, since he gains by association.
In art, there is most often a separation between the calming nature of beauty and the agitating form of political art. As stances, they belong apart. Political and revolutionary images are not meant to calm the viewer, but awaken them to consciousness of real social issues. A work of beauty is meant for quiet contemplation, aimed at the transformation of the psyche of the viewer. The two forms of design that meld these two together are marketing and propaganda. Therein lays their manipulative force; beautify a product, or a political message, and it is easier to seduce the consumer. It worked for totalitarian regimes, and became perfected by corporate marketing.
Third Issue: The Obey Giant Brand
The final, and perhaps most decisive issue I have with Shepard Fairey, is his corporate brand. Fairey lays claim to intentionally work with the methods of marketing and propaganda; he succeeds in doing so but not the way in which he declares. His work is not critical of political imagery simply because he further beautifies them via colors and inserts his brand. If he was still an unknown Graffiti artist, arguably the Obey Giant insertion would be a valid claim. But today, he has a commercially marketed name. He is 'victim' of his own success. It is his personal propaganda, his own brand, that he ultimately is marketing.
Shepard Fairey. Obey Giant insignia above HighStreet, 1401 Reading Road, Cincinnati, OH, 2010. Staff Photo.
More problematic is that any argument one may raise in criticism to his approaches has a ready-made sound byte in response: note on his site, his book, etc. his claims about being precisely that which he is not. His writings have pre-empted any possible criticism of them. What better way to be the perfect corporation, the perfect propagandist, then to make sophisticated claims that you are not doing so? To critique Fairey in this way is to be, therefore, labeled anti-critical. Jamie O'Shea, friend and collaborator of Fairey, does this (and more) in his article against Vallen. Have we not witnessed this tactic in history before? As I write this, I can already imagine a response from the Fairey corporation: Fairey is intentionally doing what you are criticizing him about, didn't you read his statements? The title of his show? O'Shea's response to Vallen? The responses would never be about real philosophical or ethical approaches in the arts (in some other context I could offer the reader a critique of his distorted use of Heideggerian phenomenology), but packaged ideas.
Despite his claims, or what responses he and his organization may make to this article, the works rest independently of the author. If the medium is the message, as the artist likes to proclaim, then it is skewed. But then, for Fairey, does the message really matter? In the end, it is product placement. We are left with an empty simulacra—revolutionary imagery, iconic rock stars, the faces of a dissenting generation—appropriated to sell his product. I predict that he will eventually foray into religious iconography, and undoubtedly the visages of famous radical thinkers. He is the appropriate artist for the look-at-me Facebook generation in which to be socially critical is to be vaguely rebellious. Visit his site, buy Obey Giant paraphernalia, and let yourself be convinced that you too are a cool artsy radical.
Special thanks to Daniel Brown for his suggestions
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Shepard Fairey. 'Supply and Demand' at the Contemporary Arts Center, Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, 44 E. 6th Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202-513.345.8400. Through August 22, 2010.
Hours: Monday: 10 am-9 pm (FREE after 5 pm); Tuesday: Closed; Wednesday-Friday: 10 am-6 pm; Saturday & Sunday: 11 am-6 pm.
