Artist Shepard Fairey’s rapid ascent in the public eye the past five years is the stuff of fairy tales. But like most 'overnight sensations', the artist perhaps best known to the world at large as the creator of the Obama
Hope poster, spent years honing his craft as a street artist before finding his niche, including a pivotal appearance at the Contemporary Arts Center in 2004. Fairey's first solo museum retrospective brings him back to Cincinnati for one of three stops showcasing close to twenty years of his groundbreaking artwork.
"Supply and Demand" traces the development of Fairey's career, from early screen prints, stencils, stickers, illustrations, collages, and works that utilize a variety of canvasses including wood and metal. The show originated at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and made a stop at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh this past fall. The final stop is at the
Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art (CAC) where it will open on February 19th.
One of only three cities to host the retrospective, CAC Director Raphaela Platow thinks it speaks volumes about how outsiders view Cincinnati and the CAC itself.
"Obviously the Institute in Boston thinks very highly of us and our program now," she says.
And Fairey, who will be part of the opening, also has positive memories about the CAC, he says, where he participated in a collective exhibit of DIY artists entitled
Beautiful Losers in 2004.
"Beautiful Losers really legitimized the art scene that I was and am part of," Fairey says. "I think that helped me and many other artists in that show reach a more serious art world audience."
The current retrospective covers Fairey's work from 1989 through 2008 and includes close to 250 works, ranging from Fairey's renowned
Obey Giant stencil to screen prints of political revolutionaries and rock stars, to recent mixed-media works and of course the iconic Obama
Hope poster.
It's the popularity of that last piece of work that Platow acknowledges will draw many new faces to the CAC.
"It's true that he's someone whose name resonates with people. He's not an artist known only in the art world or subcultures like the skateboard crowd," she says.
One of the unique parts of Fairey's visit and the retrospective will be a public art component.
Just last month, the CAC began a callout for locations for Fairey and his team to create outdoor murals on private buildings and spaces. The murals will be completed with the owners' permission prior to the retrospective's opening and could include multiple sites in the greater Cincinnati area. This part of the exhibit seems equally important to Fairey, who will arrive with his team of artists a week in advance to select sites and complete the murals.
"I hope they open peoples' eyes to the power of art in public in general, and specifically to some of the views and issues shared in the work," he says.
Platow agrees, and embraces the outreach component as well.
"This is a gateway exhibition that a lot of people want to see and we hope to facilitate having his art pervade the greater Cincinnati area from moving inside the institution to places outside in Cincinnati," she says.
When asked for hints as to where the murals could end up, Fairey shares some guidelines.
"The best locations are the most visible ones, especially when I can put my art in front of people who may never have seen it before but find it eye-opening…[I] really like the façade of the CAC, so I created an image for the show that incorporates it," he says.
Wherever they end up, Platow loves that members of the public will come across the murals unexpectedly and without the aid of a museum guide or docent to 'explain' the work or its message.
"The art speaks for itself," she says. "Magic happens in the moments you don’t control." Ultimately, Platow says, Fairey's message is really straightforward.
"It's about values that a lot of people share like peace, and love and hope," she says.
Hope is definitely one message that Fairey knows quite a bit about. His powerful and ubiquitous
Hope poster harnessed the maelstrom of energy behind then candidate Obama in 2008. Now, in the post-election afterglow and at the end of a year that saw the healthcare debate and corporate bailouts take center stage, what one word describes how Fairey feels when he looks at the image now? He replies simply, "FRUSTRATED." Fairey explains:
"Frustrated…[b]ecause a lot of the issues I care about are not being addressed strongly enough or at all. I don't think it's all Obama's fault by any means. I think we as citizens and activists need to constantly push our leaders. I'm making images that push for the changes I want, whether government is listening or not. I had hoped it would be easier, though, with Obama in office. The corporate stranglehold on government is powerful and insidious."
Even though Fairey gained his artistic credibility first for bringing his creations to the street, he is no stranger to the machinations of corporate America. Prior to his star rising in the public and art world's eyes, he worked as a graphic designer to support his artwork, and was a principal in a design studio that counted clients like Pepsi and Netscape. His collaboration in 2003 with wife Amanda yielded
Studio Number One, an agency that has designed movie posters and CD/DVD covers for record labels. But still, Fairey maintains a healthy balance between his art and his 'work' and seems to have adopted an ethos for how he melds the two.
"I'll only work for companies that seem to understand the need to support the culture they want to market to: companies who understand how art and commerce can work symbiotically. I'm not anti-capitalism at all, but I believe it should be analyzed with a healthy skepticism and an eye toward the value it actually creates. Many artists need to do corporate work to survive, and if the corporate work has no merit of its own then one can only hope that the money made from corporate work can facilitate other personal artistic goals, so something good can ultimately come of it," Fairey says.
And in a city that's home to the world’s largest advertiser, local print artists like Roman Titus, of The
BLDG, feel that Fairey's crossover popularity can foster work that can have both artistic relevancy and commercial potency.
"Marketing firms & ad agencies are realizing that the people who typically love this type of art, are those in that coveted target demographic of 18-32 year olds, so they jump at a way to get their attention," Titus says. "I think Shepard has definitely paved the way for other print artists, some as colleagues and some riding his coat tails but I think that's the mark of a great, the same way someone like Andy Warhol paved paths for freeloaders and legitimates alike."
Titus says that his studio has been approached by several different commercial brands about utilizing the artists he works with to promote, design, and endorse their brand.
"I think it's great," Titus says. If an artist can make good money making art and occasionally making commercial art, they can continue to make art, and we all benefit."
Even Museum Director Platow agrees.
"The boundary between commercial art and contemporary art is artificial. It's a discourse that is part of our modern way of thinking and has only existed for about 300 years. It's not a conflict or selling out," she says.
So while Fairey dances back and forth as the preeminent print artist of his generation, an in-demand designer, and now galleried fine artist (and don't forget popular DJ who has collaborated with Chuck D and DJ Shadow), he seems to seamlessly blur the lines between each. If asked, though, how does Fairey categorize himself?
"I'm still a street artist, definitely," he says.
A street artist, then, whose iconic image of Obama now hangs in the
National Portrait Gallery next to centuries old oil paintings of past presidents. Does Fairey's image of Obama says something about our culture's evolution of not only looking at art but how we look at our own leaders?
"I'm excited because it's a piece of grass-roots activism that wasn't corporate-funded and didn't come from an elite power source, yet it made a difference. Hopefully the image reminds people that they are not powerless," Fairey says.
"Supply and Demand" runs February 20-August 22, 2010 at the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art.
Installation and CAC facade photographs by Scott BeselerPhotos of Shepard and his artwork, courtesy of Obey Giant Art
Shepard Fairey portrait.
Fairey's work arrives at the CAC
Guns and Roses Stencil, 2007, Retired stencil and collage on paper, 44 x 30 in., Courtesy of Chloe Gordon
Obama HOPE, 2008, Mixed media stencil collage on paper, 72 x 48 in., in crate
Arab Woman, 2006, Mixed media stencil collage on canvas, Courtesy of Williams Collection, Photo Credit: John Kennard
Two Sides of Capitalism: Bad, 2007, Mixed media installation mural on wood, 120 x 192 in., Courtesy of Jonathan LeVine Gallery
Workers uncrate "Arab Woman"
The Contemporary Arts Center