Monday, February 09, 2009

Shepard Fairey vs. A.P.

I have been a fan of artist Shepard Fairey for mucho years now... I have supported the Obey Giant campaign and his projects since... so yesterday I got a text from my boy Nick saying Fairey was arrested... but if you follow the carrer of Fairey... well... he is/was a graffiti artist and has been arrested for that in the past. Fairey has an art exhibit in Boston this week and apperently there were 2 warrents out for his arrest for prior tagging. Read the A.P. report here.

Interestingly enough while researching this topic an hour ago, the A.P. also reported this. The A.P. is after Fairey for the use of the Obama image (an A.P. owned image) and making it the world famous "HOPE" art. Well, Shepard is after the mighty A.P. for threats and such.

Besides being a fan of Shapard Fairey, I am highly interested in the battle of ownership of art. While I respect the photographer, I believe that Fairey changed the image and in that making the "HOPE" print his ownership. I see this as the same as the Campbell's Soup Cans, art produced in 1962 by Andy Warhol.

We will see how this plays out in the next few days.

Check out Shepard Fairey's work at: Obey Giant

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

if Fairey was a great he would have not been arrested so many times. To add Fairey has finally been revealed to the world through being exposed of his copyright infringements as his true sources. His work is inevitably referenced from important Latin American traditions and important movements like the Black Panthers and other important art movements. He is nothing other then a Post Colonial Capitalist exploiting Multi Culturalism Markets to serve only his own economic need in the interest of being Radical chic? Now he taking the offense to sue the AP unheard of by common everyday artists to justify his infringed actions. All he has left in his bag of tricks is a decade of copyright violations. Who and What else will he steal from next. Now he has retained the best Lawyers in his land to justify his countless violations, even if the lawyers clear his name he has to buy his way of out the legal maze he has foolishly created, he has inevitably lost integrity in the court of public opinion. He and his publicist officers manufacture desperate hacked press releases that he is operating under the umbrella of Fair Use but Fair Use is limited for a reason by the law to protect and safeguard important cultural, oeuvres, movements and history.

When the true voice of the media its people critique and or question his ignorant actions his Fairey camp of publicists and handlers cite jealously. Has anyone in the Faireyland camp ever heard of the several hundred year history of criticism. A political commentator an artist he is NOT a cultural thief motivated by cash he is...


Hey Fairey,
Do you yourself a favor and take your money and invest in going back to school Fairey or afford yourself better educated publicists its obvious your art is motivated by only Social Climbing Mt Cash-more of Lifestyle, Personality Cult and Money not great Art.
Or contact Dave Navarro and request a gig playing another DJ opening session for Janes Addiction where you could be billed as “Shepard Fairey my name is DJ I Bite It”!!

Rage Against the Shepard Fairey Publicity Machine...

Anonymous said...

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


PHANTOM STREET ARTIST