Hope-hyping huckster Shepard Fairey is now painting his critics with a broad brush!
Last week a blog called The Eastsider LA reported:
After pleading guilty to vandalism charges in Boston over his guerrilla art tactics, artist Shepard Fairey had to deal with acts of vandalism closer to home. A few days ago workers sandblasted the brick exterior of his Echo Park studio, gallery and ad agency – called Studio Number One – and applied a shiny layer of anti-graffiti coating to the walls. Frequent tagging and graffiti had apparently taken a toll on the Sunset Boulevard building and Fairey, who rose to fame by employing the same hit-and-run tactics of graffiti artists and taggers.
“When graff seeped into the raw brick it was very difficult to clean,” said Fairey, creator of the Obama “Hope” poster, in an email forwarded by one of his employees. “The building is historic and I love and want to protect the brick. The city was never any help with removal. Graffiti is par for the course.”
Well, that’s kind of funny, isn’t it? The guy who’s made a mint and risen to national prominence by appropriating and/or vandalizing other people’s property doesn’t want anybody messing with his property. Already it’s fine Deceiver-fodder.
But it’s Fairey’s direct reply to the Eastsider that really makes this one a beaut:
“Your post about the sealer on our building was very obnoxious. Do you just not give a s*** about objectivity? My practice as a street artist has NEVER included putting my work on pristine or operational buildings unless asked to do so. I’m not mad at the graff artists who have hit our building, I just like the brick unadorned. I’ve always been a champion of street art and graffiti in the same way I’m a champion of free speech. I think it is important for people to be able to speak freely, but if I’m watching a channel whose content is not my cup of tea I may choose to change the channel. It does not make me an opponent of free speech. Preferring my brick unadorned does not make me anti-graffiti. Every time I put a piece of art on the street I know it may be cleaned. That is the nature of the art form. Our building houses a f***ing gallery and we show street artist’s work there and on banners on the side of the building. For you to portray me as anti-street art is very revealing about YOU and YOUR agenda. Are you pro-street art or graffiti? If the answer is yes, then I’d assume based on your portrayal of me, that you’d welcome graffiti on your house or business lest you be revealed to be an anti-art hypocrite. If you have any integrity you will post my response along with your home and office address as an invitation for people to display their art there. Your attempt to portray me as hypocrite was thinly veiled incitement for people to tag our building. I have been arrested 15 times and know the risks of street art. Do you know the risks of being an irresponsible journalist? I responded to your inquiry very politely and you disrespected my candor by taking a cheap shot… writing something irresponsible and sensational to get people to your site. You could have written something more sophisticated and balanced that could have created a worthwhile discussion about public art. Instead you were lazy and obnoxious. Maybe the economy has made you desperate, or maybe you are always slime. Either way, you should be ashamed.”
Wow! I think what Shepard Fairey is saying here is that he’s a staunch proponent of free speech, and if you point out any of the contradictions in his career and character, no matter how mildly, you should just shut the hell up. Don’t you know who he is, you common trash?
Now that we know how good-natured and charmingly self-effacing you are, Shep, I’m sure you’ll see the humor in this:
Or maybe prefer your face to be unadorned… with egg.
(Hat tip to Hit & Run)
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That’s extremeley hypocritical.
I have a cousin in San Francisco. When the wall of his house got tagged, the city wrote him a $372 ticket because he didn’t paint over it within 48 hours.
The kicker is that the San Francisco Prosecutor refuses to charge vandals/taggers (which is, let’s face it, what most “grafitti artists” really are).
So the thug wannabe who spraypaints your house gets zero days in jail, zero dollar fine, and the victim gets fined $372.
Baghdad by the Bay, alright.
This man very much needs to go away. And take his line of overpriced t-shirts with him.
Fairey to free speech: “no you can’t!”
hahahaha…. he “likes his brick unadorned”. i imagine that the owners of the places that he’s tagged (taxpayers in the case of public property) would share his appreciation for the un-adorned.
Shepard Fairey, plagiarist.
Truly a champion of free speech… as long as one agrees with him. A true liberal.
Wow, sounds like a page off of Obama’s book. You can’t do it, but we can crap. Same old stuff, different day.
Criticism of such a free thinking,talented, artist such as what’s-his-name is the same as being un-American. That’s why he was so rude and viseral in his letter. We are just too “stoopid” to understand his methods, AND the importance of un-adorned brick work.
So…pointing out his hypocrisy is a “thinly veiled incitement for people to tag [his] building”, but he wants someone else to post their home address?
Also: a “f*****g gallery”? I imagine that’s got to be a fairly popular attraction.
Well now that Fairey has money I wonder how many lawsuits could be filed against him for Plagerism. His work can’t fall under the term of satire since it was used to promote events and political parties. Someone needs to slap his untalented ass with a couple of suits and shut his business down.
Typical liberal-hypocrate. Sorry for the redundancy.
Beige – loved it. Until you pointed it out, I didn’t realize how that could be interpreted. How funny. But aren’t those just called brothels? I guess my un-american view of everything stops me from seeing the truth..its a “f…..g gallery.”.
When some people see tagging they see art. I see ghetto.
LOL Beige! Who knew that San Fransisco was the new Amsterdam?!
What a pompous tool.
You have inspired me, Aleric. I will go to law school to start a practice based solely on handling lawsuits against this douche. I have a new life dream.
What I wouldn’t give to see Andre the Giant rise from the dead and beat the obey outta Fairey’s ass.
See Beige? Socrates.
Pass me the damn cup, ‘cuz I can’t do it all again.
I love graff/ urban art/ tagging/ guerilla art. Everything from the huge mural pieces to the scrawled throw-ups. Learning to ‘read’ it adds another interesting layer to the urban landscape.
But yeah, if you don’t want crap all over your place then its safe to assume people don’t want your crap all of their place. Even if (especially if) it’s mass produced and political. (Truthfully those Obama posters creeped me out.) Should people be tagging his place? No. (Even if I like it most of it is still vandalism). Is he a big fat whiney hypocrite? Yes. Nobody wanted your sh*t on their property wither.
I think he should have faced the graffitti like a true street artist – paint over it! Put your stuff on top. Shut up and man up.
Pearce if you need help filling out your financial aid forms let me know.
Minnow what did I miss????
Not a biggie, Aleric. Somewhere in all the PeTA protesting McD threads we discussed parody, satire, and the legal consequences ad infinitum.
Just drink the hemlock now, Al. It’d be soooooo much easier
Minnow, I’d pay good money to see the Andre the Giant/Fairey match.
There’s a fascinating chapter in Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point about how keeping graffiti and other “guerrilla art” off NYC subway cars in the 90’s was the beginning of the subway’s (and the city’s) turnaround. That, to me, says the actual worth of this “art” is fast approaching zero.
Will do, Aleric. My life now has direction and purpose!
…are you an accountant?
WTF, Deceiver. Don’t eat my posts. They’re not vegan.
Yet another example of “Not In My Back Yard”. NIMBY tools loooove everything from methadone clinics to graffitti to staged protests – until it comes to their little corner of the planet. Then it’s “Put it somewhere else! Anywhere else! That is not okay! These acts are not appropriate when done here!”
I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.
I don’t think not wanting vegans (or Mormons, or Baptists…) on my lawn trying to convert me is hypocritical. Let ‘em live as they see fit. Just please understand that some of us are so, so sick of sermons about…anything, including how awesome vegetarian diets are.
I need a cane to wave around when I tell people to get off my lawn…
Argh, wrong post. Making myself sad because of Michael Vick is messing with my brain. Ignore. YOU SEE NOTHING.
…but am I the only one who wants to beat things every time she sees a shirt from the “Obey” clothing line? “OBEY PROPAGANDA.” As long as it’s mine.
Well, he could pee on the building and mark it as his territory so nobody will paint on his unadorned, raw brick.
Ally, I’m right there with you on the NIMBY thing. All the rich liberals in my neck of the woods are all about green power and environmentally friendly energy…until Cape Energy wants to build a wind farm in Nantucket Sound.
Koka, for this guy, peeing on something is probably foreplay, not art.
ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
…for those not already aware:
“Because the Hope poster had been “perpetuated illegally”[29] and independently by the street artist, the Obama campaign could not risk any direct affiliation with it. Although the campaign officially disavowed any involvement in the creation or popularization of the poster, Fairey has commented in interviews that he was in communication with campaign officials during the period immediately following the poster’s release.”
Hah.
From what I understand the Obama administration had nothing to do with Fairey’s work and it was not Faiery’s idea either. It was the brainchild of someone else in the Obey camp, had very little to do with anyone at the company’s political views and was simply a marketing idea. It appealled to Obey’s target audience and got Fairey alot of publicity.
Howcum it doesn’t say ‘OBEY’ beneath Obama’s mug, instead of ‘HOPE’? We’ve lost all hope, and The One’s minions sure as hell want you to OBEY.
Hmmm…
Live by the spray can, die by the spray can?
Turnabout’s fair play.
The Phantom Street Artist has said:
People will one day speak of a Future Day and Time when a coined term will come from the voice of the streets. The term will be a definitive colloquial called Fairey Use TM to mean when an artist out of disrespect betrays important historical and revolutionary cultures, languages and authors to advance his own selfish interest in greed and mammon. This is called Fairey Use TM when an artist steals from other artists, cultural references and fails to give proper credit then tampers with federal evidence then hides behind important movements like the creative commons and attempts to escape justice under interpretative legal defense.
In a sentence:
Mommy is that artist pulling a Fairey Use?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDUzLe6-YVk&fmt=18