Art of Politics ["Obey Obama" - Obama's official poster-maker loves Stalin, Mao, etc.]

New York Times Magazine ^ | April 13, 2008 | Rob Walker

[Dajjal]

"Does pro-Obama creativity say more about the candidate or his fans?"

Well, the New York Times asked the question, so it must be worthy to print and all that.

Does the fact that Obama's official poster-maker loves Stalin and Mao say something about Obama, or just Obama's fans?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/13/magazine/13wwln-consumed-t.html

New York Times Magazine (p.27)
April 13, 2008

The Art Of Politics
Does pro-Obama creativity say more about the candidate or his fans?

by Rob Walker

Obama art

Whether or not Barack Obama would make a good president, it’s clear that he makes an excellent muse. It’s hard to think of a political candidate in recent memory who has, in real time, inspired so much creativity, exercised free of charge and for the campaign’s benefit. Perhaps this suggests something about Obama — or maybe it suggests something about his supporters.

... One of the most prominent is ... the Los Angeles artist Shepard Fairey in January.... Fairey made a brief statement ... noting his “great conviction that Barack Obama should be the next President.” Poster sales, he added, would underwrite “a large statewide poster campaign.”

In addition to popping up on many streets, the image later made its way onto a T-shirt, created in collaboration with the San Francisco street-wear brand Upper Playground — and apparently onto the radar of the Obama campaign. The candidate himself sent a thank-you note, and his campaign had Fairey create a new poster that became the inaugural offering in an “Artists for Obama” section of the barackobama.com online store. Fairey told Creativity Online that while he has been politically active, there’s something new in the enthusiasm he now professes to feel. “I just thought it was time to stick my neck out,” he said....

[Dajjal]

Here are comments from my brother, who clued me onto Obama's artist.

Here is the official poster sold at the Obama campaign website:

Product Code: PO26951:

http://store.barackobama.com/product_p/po26951.htm

http://store.barackobama.com/Artists_for_Obama_s/1018.htm

The artist who created this image is Shepard Fairey.

As Time Magazine puts it, SF is "The man who launched the sticker revolution."

http://www.time.com/time/photoessays/street_art/20.html

Previously people who did "graffiti art," like Warhol find Jean-Michel Basquiat, spray painted buildings. Even if they did the same image over and over again, each spray painting was unique. Fairey hit on the idea of pre-printing his vandalism as stickers and then covering an urbane area with the endless repeation on the same image.

The first idea SF had was a sticker of Andre the Giant:

In Fairey's mind, Andrea the Giant gets mixed up with Big Brother, since Andrea, is, well, big. This produces Fairey's next sticker campaign: "Obey Andrea":

Hitting upon Soviet aesthetics, Fairey became a big hit with those who wax nostalgic for the return of the USSR. He founded BLK/MRKT Visual Communications to sell his rebel hipness to Hawaiian Punch:

http://www.blkmrkt.com/blkmrkt.html

The art side is run out of http://obeygiant.com ... Here are some examples of that work:

http://obeygiant.com/archives?nggpage=7

http://mkgallery.com/artists/fairey/fairey_2006_3.html

Of course God reminds us not to value this life to too highly by allowing it to endlessly descend to lower and lower levels of self parody. This it came to pass, my brothers, that when Penguin Books was getting around to reissue the Orwell "backlist," they picked Fairey to do the covers for "1984" and "Animal Farm" ... i.e., a guy who thinks Stalin was cool will now insert himself into the history of these texts:

http://thepenguinblog.typepad.com/the_penguin_blog/2008/04/it-was-a-bright.html

Oh yes, this is not eltist:

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/13/magazine/13consumed.xlarge1.jpg

Here just a few Fairey prints from his "Obey" website:

http://www.thegiant.org/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Prints

Also it seems that Obama says he picked Fairey because of the "political messages" in his earlier art (all that Stalin stuff!) ...

Obama has a plank in his platform for artists

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/additional/Obama_FactSheet_Arts.pdf

Barack Obama: A Champion for Arts and Culture
A Platform In Support of the Arts
[excerpt]
Create an Artist Corps: Barack Obama supports the creation of an "Artist Corps" of young artists trained to work in low-income schools and their communities. Studies in Chicago have demonstrated that test scores improved faster for students enrolled in low-income schools that link arts across the curriculum than scores for students in schools lacking such programs.

I assume this government funded "Artist Corps" Obama is going to create will be the ones drawing the pictures of the Glorious People's Tractor plowing the land ....

See also this companion thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2006109/posts
Shepard Fairey: Obey Obama
by Jeff Beer

[Dajjal]

Obama ping

See also the companion thread:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2006109/posts
Shepard Fairey: Obey Obama
interview with Jeff Beer

[Jeff Chandler]

www.obeythepurebreed.com/

[Free ThinkerNY]

It seems that Obama is attracting every America hating Marxist and terrorist to his cause. He loves having their support. He’s the most dangerous candidate for the Presidency in the history of this nation.

[weegee]

The Obama campaign solicited this artist. Obama himself sent him a hand signed letter and acknowledged seeing his work in galleries AND on stop signs in public.

Obama knew what he was getting.

It is getting tiresome listening to this Socialist stooge pretend that he didn’t know what everyone he’s ever associated with had to say about Karl Marx.

[Ilya Mourometz]

Fascinating and another angle in may growing conviction that Obama is as close to a true fascist as this Country has ever produced. The artwork is, objectively speaking, powerful and effective. By the same token, politicians in the US and Europe have, for decades, shied away from such powerful imagery precisely because of its over fascist overtones. The whole “godlike” image projected through the use of bold colors and simple, stark lines—whether to demonize Bush as an SS/Hitlerian freak, or Obama as the heir to Guevera’s mantle of mass-murder.

Every day, I become more and more terrified of what this man, Obama, is really about. This artist, clearly talented, must understand and know what he’s doing. I can appreciate the fact that one might view Leni Reifenstahl as a great artist, separate and apart from the regime she supported, yet I doubt hers is a legacy one would envy. Unlike Riefenstahl, who claims to have been duped or oblivious, this person, Fairey, is fully conscious of the role he is playing in bringing a true fascist to power in this country. Not the fantasy of fascism that he projects onto Bush, but a true fascist in the mold of Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin. For all his deliberately misused talents in the service of true evil, may Fairey’s name be cast out from the family of man forever.

[weegee]

But because of the Hollywood Reds’ smear of the Communist hearings, it is considered kneejerk to call someone a Communist. But it is acceptable for Congressmen to call Republicans NAZIs on the floor of the House.

unbelievable.

[Dajjal]

Fairey is having trouble on another front: the estates of some artists whose work he has been "appropriating" are not amused and see Fairey as a plagiarist.

http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Obey/index.htm
Obey Plagiarist Shepard Fairey
by Mark Vallen

[weegee]

Mr. Fairey should read what George Orwell had to say about 1984 and Animal Farm. They were about Stalinists. Not just in the USSR but also in the US and UK.

[Dajjal]

Great parodies of Fairey at the Peoples' Cube:

http://thepeoplescube.com/red/viewtopic.php?t=1884
Hope, Dope, Grope, and Other Obamunist Posters
by Commissar Maksim

[Dajjal]

Again, I’d like to tip my hat to my brother for doing all the “legwork” in finding this stuff. Kudos to him.

[Ilya Mourometz]

Is this also by Fairey, because he does have Ron Paul (haha) merchandise and even some Reagan t-shirts, though given the anti-american screed he puts in the article, I’m sure he sees that all as a joke.

[Dajjal]

Another article on Fairey:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-daum12apr12,0,5472791.column
Obama As An Art Form
by Meghan Daum

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

Just wow.

[Jeff Chandler]

I don’t think the pet art is his.

[TeleStraightShooter]

quite revealing

[Travis McGee]

Another America-hating commie creep who is a buddy of Barack’s. Sheesh! This will make a great campaign ad.

[potlatch]

Thanks Spirit! Amazing!!

devolve, come look at these images!

[cricket]

Good job by NYT's doing a 'face-painting/saving' analysis of Obama's 'friends' in the world. . .Nice learning that they are just the 'creative types'; whom, for whatEVER reason; are inspired by Obama.

These people cannot even say the word, 'Liberal' when it comes to identifying themselves or 'friends'; so we know where 'Marxist' stands. . .

[glock rocks]