Shepard Fairey is turning heads again, not in the streets this time but in a formal gallery in Denver. Over the last 15 years Fairey, part-entrepreneur, part-artist, has successfully brought art back onto the streets with his controversial Obey:Giant campaign.
The effort to create any type of symbol or slogan that can be recognized on all sides of the globe is something that multinational companies spend billions of dollars investing in. How can one man undermine such a system? Power of the People
Shepard began on his own, but over the years his home-brew logo began popping up next to graffiti tags in Americas largest cities. A ghostly face giving off a glare that makes no man want part in the future, and a tag line simply reading: OBEY.
This image was to be photocopied and photocopied and photocopied and distributed and distributed and distributed until people started asking questions.
Today the artist behind the famous vectored face of Andre the Giant is still designing & creating. His most-recent claim-to-fame came from Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama when Fairey’s “HOPE” poster design was offered on Obama’s website as an official campaign poster.
Much like Obama, Shepard Fairey has always been an advocate of change. Proving that guerilla style advertising can be effective, that going in from the sides can work and that we still have strength in numbers. So this week while the politicians heads are growing bigger in Denver, Shepard and friends will be honoring important campaign issues through art. Spanning the same days as the Democratic convention, Manifest: Hope presented in part by MoveOn.org will showcase Shepard’s work on the national stage once again.. and thats exactly the type of change I can believe in.
