"Code Pink Steampunk" "air-guitar socialism"
You, sir, are on fire.

Hell of a rant, Gerard - but it's Peter Paul Rubens, as in the painter, as opposed to Reubens the sandwiches. (I don't normally do spelling corrections, but the irony in this one leaped out.)

Peace,
Matthew

It's amazing that people that claim to understand irony don't recognize it when its staring in their faces.

I sent this to an author of a prominent politics weblog, after he posted a photo of the Obama HQ in Houston, which has a Fairey mural on the outside wall. He, of course, never responded and never used it:

In a way it's funny that Obama has been accused of plagarism (however weak those accusations may be), and yet his campaign is using posters "designed" by the well-known plagarist Shepard Fairey (See a write-up of Fairey's ripoffs here: http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Obey/index.htm)

Also, it's kind of funny that Fairey's Web page/company is called "Obey Giant - WORLDWIDE PROPAGANDA DELIVERY."

For all your snarkiness about knowing more art than Fairey, you could have at least chosen a shade of blue that didn't look so godawful with the rest of the piece.

Good grief, where did this guy study -- the Joseph Stalin Art Institute? This stuff looks absolutely Soviet.

Nahhh--looks more like a Che rip-off to me.

That's a good article. I do think the colour of the word "obey" should match the rest of the blue in the poster, for maximum subversiveness.

Hmm, I wonder if a few other words might usefully be substituted on Obama posters. "Messiah", "Worship", and so on ...

Shepard Fairey, "delicate genius," was born too soon and in the wrong place. Had the Shepster lived in Stalinist Russia, I'm sure he'd have cobbled together a very comfortable living, denouncing his fellow artists to the NKVD and cranking out Party portraits in the most approved social realist style.

Fairey's pushing 40 and it's still all sophomoric art about The Man. I mean, I used to draw Hitler mustaches on the president's picture and all, but then I turned 17.

Seems his art is no more or less vacuous than Warhol's. Difference is Fairey is, I sense, even more vapid than his work whereas Warhol seemed to be thrusting our own zeitgeist in our faces in a way that we couldn't deny its existential emptiness. Fairey's work is perhaps an apotheosis of the mundane, the insipid banalities that pass for culture today. Warhol, and I hated his work, did not so much celebrate the banal as thrust it to the fore so we would have to appreciate it for what it was. We were exhorted to realize that "ex nihilo nihil fit". Warhol thus provided his public a service. Fairey merely "services" a public.

I had a similar idea, adapting some of the classic 'Obey' posters for Obamamania. Please feel to take these and use them for whatever.

http://tinyurl.com/39jkpb
http://tinyurl.com/2jyp35
http://tinyurl.com/3ac59g
http://tinyurl.com/3ya2pe
http://tinyurl.com/3d7wlb

My posts on the chosen one:
http://www.dirckthenoorman.com/?cat=41

Could be time for a second look at "uncolonized" R. Crumb. He was hating America as hard as he was able. That's where his following came from.

The font is wrong, too. While you could do worse than Arial Black to convey the idea of blind obedience, I think it's better to stick with the original Futura Extra Bold Condensed Oblique. (Futura has an unfortunate history of being used for this, uh, class, of work.)

I'm unsure about the color, though.

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/2919/obamaobeyoz1.png

I thank God, truly I do, for those among us who can so completely see that which is as it is and so deliciously inform and enlighten us to it's being thus.

I met Fairey a few times in 1997, just as he was getting his start in San Francisco. He was dating the hot roommate of a friend of mine, and she was crazy for him, him not so much for her. Each time I met him, he impressed me as kind of a self-indulgent dick.

*KEEERRRRAAANNGGG*

(Sound of 16 ton irony dropping on Fairey's head)

Good lord, Gerard. That was magnificently brutal.

Hey-

At least check out the guys actual art before you bash him, (the author of this rant didn't exacitaly choose Fairey's 'best' works to exhibit here). If you disagree with his politics thats one thing, but I would not deny he has some talent. Street art is "comfortably shallow" because its message needs to be recognized easily, and absorbed in a glance. It has to stand out to people who aren't looking for it. Thats the point. Fairey is not trying to be a Monet, or a Picasso....not even a Duchamp! Besides, you sound like a dumbass when you abbreviate the word 'troglodyte' too many times in one paragraph.

http://www.jonathanlevinegallery.com/?method=Artist.ArtistDetail&ArtistID=F65EBB86-3048-28EB-92D55AA4FC996E31&GalleryID=82C33C59-3048-28EB-92DB386C8C733405

Frankly, I did look at a lot of his art. It is all, as you can plainly see, the one-trick pony I said it was. Nothing more. You can see it all clearly at the very page you link to. Shallow assimilationism that has no technique beyond that found in photography and your average art school print shop. There's one message and one general method. It's art made by a photoshop philosophy.

As for the font used, well, you go to war with the fonts you have.

As for R. Crumb, well, I'll tell you something. I know Crumb and he does not "hate America" so much as he hates life itself.

He's an equal opportunity Daumier.

What I particularly appreciate about the design of your website is the white outline around the words AMERICAN DIGEST. Also the drop shadow. Both very classic.

Excellent. I especially liked the riff about the artist statement, since - being a composer myself - I've said for years that if you have to explain your music in program notes for people to understand it, then you've failed as a composer.

If you think the pop art world is bad, try contemporary "classical" composition: It's dilettantism run amok.

In the "Obey" version of the precious leader's poster, why didn't you make the "O" in obey out of the Obama campaign "O icon" thingy?
Too cutesy?

We created these at work.

(Based off the Obama "HOPE" poster by Fairey)

I hope you don't mind if I appropriate your Obama "OBEY" poster, turn them into stickers, and place them around the Self-Loathing White Liberal neighborhood I pass through every morning and evening on my way to the train.

It will make their heads explode. And, as a Chicagoan who has had to live through the constant public fawning over this guy for years, seeing the local NPRistas go berserk would make my day.

I hit "post," and then see Emd's brilliant idea. I want to run with that one, too, if you don't mind.

Oooo, what fun it is to be a "culture jammer." I feel all rebel-like and crap.

I prefer this one:

There's also these:

I am attracted to Fairey's work from an aesthetic standpoint. Yes, it's derivative of Soviet Propaganda art, but that doesn't necessarily negate its artistic merit.

Politically, however, I fear Fairey and I have a lot of differences.

Feel free to use these and the Bob Hope version linked before any way you see fit.

Personally, I find it very creepy. I expect Fairey's Obama posters to be next to a poster extolling the successes of collectivization or the Great Leap Forward.

And then there is that "looking forward" motif that you see in all pro-totalitarian posters. Why would you replicate it here? Stalin, Hitler, Mao and the rest -- they never look directly at you, but always head tilted up and oblique from the viewer. PJ O'Rourke claimed it looked as though the guy in the poster just passed gas and are trying to act as though he is trying to figure out where that smell is coming from.

This looks like one of those images that should pop right out of the page (screen) if you were wearing those red-blue 3D glasses. Or concealing a secret message about Ovaltine that requires a secret-decoder ring's red filter to read.
.

Fairey's "Change" poster is not "derivative" of Soviet propaganda. It IS Soviet propaganda. It is not ironic. It is earnest. And it is not just for troglodytes. It is for anyone who embraces the pop aesthetic. This poster is, quite simply, self aware. It knows what Soviet propaganda was. It knows Fairey's ironic use of it in the past. It knows its purpose. This is the artist taking a step beyond Meta Art, and, therefore, taking a step back into pure expression. This is the artist, educated and sentient, embracing the form. It's bold, earnest and refreshing.

Restrained brilliance, Gerard. An analysis like a shaped charge explosive, a cutting wave front directed at the problem. I work in advertising, and the slavish addiction to Saint Barack in that industry amazes me in its ubiquity. Obama is widely loved with the passion usually reserved for luxury brands like BMW or especially brands that confer moral superiority, like a Prius. Obama's is not a politician to these people, he is a brand, first and foremost. Brand loyalty is key to their careers and thought, and with Saint Barack they have found a brand of politician that is hip, cool, and young, and above all left-wing. Finally, a politician with a cool typeface.

Fairey's journeyman art is nothing more than what hundreds of proficient commercial artists produce with some modest skill and a copy of Adobe Illustrator. However, instead of selling you tennis shoes or a flat screen, Fairey wants to sell Hope, Change, and Progress. Never mind that the hope is for a society chained by political correctness, the change is to a world shorn of liberty, the progress is to penetrate everyone's lives with cancerous state bureaucracy. It's like a new, expensive, exclusive brand of bottled water. More expensive than petroleum, less nutritious than vegetable broth, but very, very chic. And nothing is more important to the artistic temperament than being chic.

I've been wondering...has anybody ever done a parody of the Andre poster where instead of "OBEY" it reads "PEANUT?"

An entire school of art developed in contraposition to the national-socialist school, where all paintings were to look like photographs, and all photographs were to look like paintings. Pollock's white writing were part of it. The idea was that it was an art that could not be used for propaganda.

> At least check out the guys actual art before you bash him

OK, I did.

I'll say that I agre with Gerard -- the stuff you pointed to shows several motifs endlessly repeated, all common to Socialist/USSR style propaganda:
1) Fists and weapons raised in defiance
2) Dominant (Arterial Blood) Red color
3) Peasant woman-cum-Burkha'd woman
4) Red Star
5) "Peace", "No war" memes (in direct contrast to #1)
6) "Obey" meme (in direct contrast to #5)
7) Rose

He's a one-trick pony. Everything is an admixture of the above. He doesn't even experiment with other primary or "pure" colors. Doesn't try anything exotic with colors or shading reversals. Most of his stuff, even the variant picture of the cute little girl, comes off as oppressive and dark and dehumanized. The essence of the perfect Soviet State.

"War for sale, no thank you" is in direct contraposition to the whole guns/fist in the air meme he uses so much, as is "Obey". War occurs because someone isn't "Obey"ing someone else's diktat (Iraq is the USA refusing to obey the diktat of Islamic Jihad).

The whole style he's adopted idealizes the USSR. During its brief history, the Soviets invaded (at the least):
a) Poland
b) (Germany -- Hitler just beat them to the punch)
c) Hungary
d) Czechoslovakia
e) Afghanistan
In addition to the same sort of widespread meddling interventionism which The Left takes the USA to task for (somewhat correctly, I'll even acknowledge).

In short, Fairey is clueless about his own damnfool message.

Gerard nails it dead on and right to the point with:
It is the edge that says "Isn't it fun to play with fascism when you live in a country that keeps you forever safe from it?"

That **you** don't see all of this is amusing in itself.

P.S. -- Nice one, Gerard.

> As for R. Crumb, well, I'll tell you something. I know Crumb and he does not "hate America"

The best R. Crumb I've ever seen was something he did very early, appearing in "Help" magazine in 1965. It is, amazingly (for Crumb), "poignant".

The picture is a poor, run down tenement district, and an alleyway, which the viewer is looking down the length of. At the end, you can see more tenements. Far down the alley, just a little blob, you can see a kid spraypainting something which he's been putting all down the alleyway, at the base of the walls, on the street, etc... It's the words "Astro Boy".

I'll explain it because I don't think my words describe it well enough, and it took me a number of viewings before I actually saw what Crumb must've seen (I presume it's from something he actually saw himself) -- All the "Astro Boy" words are down low to the ground. Think about those words -- This kid has his heart and his mind in the sky and the stars, soaring around, free as a bird, but he's stuck down on the earth, trapped, writing along the bases of his mundane environment.

The image, for all its simplicity, is incredibly subtle and effective. I love it.

I'm thinking "NOBEY" or, for something a little more erudite, "NON SERVIAM."

me need the "obey" poster. me save image as...

To Karl Popper N.B., wherever you are:

Moderate THIS, if you will. And rest assured, this is NOT spam...

"The Dali Bama"... "Obamessiah"... "The Obamanator"... "The O'Bama Factor"... take your pick. I have more, if you'd like to hear 'em! No dearth of monikers here...

HE, AND ONLY HE, IS TRULY THE LAST BEST HOPE for our ailing (and failing) nation (and dying world).

(BTW, check out the very first link in this piece: what a crock)...

(Parenthetical entities are MINE)...

“I wanted to make an art piece (piece of what?) of Barack (Hussein) Obama because I thought an iconic portrait of him could symbolize and amplify the (un)importance of his (non)mission (as Saviour of All Mankind). I believe Obama will (mis)guide (i.e., sell out, destroy, and co-opt) this country to a future where everyone can thrive (and worship at the altar of Iranian, Saudi, and Russian tyranny, especially at the gas pump) and I should support him vigorously for the sake of my two young daughters (who will eventually "thrive" under slavery, in my world view). I have made (ersatz) art opposing the Iraq war for several years, and making art of Obama, who opposed the war from the start (perhaps due to the fact that he was NOT a U.S. Senator when the U.S. Congress voted on the Iraq war, and could NOT have voted for, OR, against it (as a U.S Senator; yes, look it up, you mindless, moronic, Obama myrmidons), is like making art for peace (AT ANY PRICE). I know I have an audience of young (albeit, "dumbed-down" zombies, thanks to the American educational system) art fans and I’m delighted (i.e., all the way to the bank) if I can encourage them to see the (so-called?) merits (just check his Senate voting record) of Barack (Hussein) Obama.”

-Shepard Fairey

CRINGE You can believe in!!

Nobama '08!!

What? Me worry?

You take a mortal man
And put him in control
Watch him become a god
Watch peoples heads a 'roll
A 'roll, a 'roll

Just like the pied piper
Led rats through the streets
We dance like Marionettes
Swaying to the symphony of destruction

Acting like a robot
It's metal brain corrodes
You try to take its pulse
Before the head explodes
Explodes, explodes

Just like the pied piper
Led rats through the streets
We dance like Marionettes
Swaying to the symphony

Just like the pied piper
Led rats through the streets
We dance like Marionettes
Swaying to the symphony
Swaying to the symphony of destruction

The earth starts to rumble
World powers fall
A warring for the heavens
A peaceful man stands tall
Tall, tall

Just like the pied piper
Led rats through the streets
We dance like Marionettes
Swaying to the symphony

Just like the pied piper
Led rats through the streets
We dance like Marionettes
Swaying to the symphony
Swaying to the symphony of destruction

"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood."

"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderestimated?"

Duh... huh?

WAKE UP WHITE PEOPLE!!!

American Digest? This is one of the best sites I've ever visited. You're great.

Shepard Fairey is an art thief who targets obscure poster artists in order to claim that their work is his own. Look up what he did to the work of Rene Mederos. Shepard has stolen just as many images as Obama has stolen quotes from the speeches of others. A match made in heaven or maybe it was made in hell?

this message is to NoObamaCant on youtube, whose account has been closed apparently for the potential damage he could cause obama by releasing the no you can't video.

you can find a suitable substitute for the babies. i realize the parody, i cant guarantee anything, but i would say that with about a 90% success rate you will get ridiculous traffic and notoriety if thats what youre looking for. either way the video will be seen by about a couple hundred thousand people by election day.'

regards,
jonas schreiber

I find it funny that you persistently poke fun at Fairey's skills, however you are unable to make the most minimal adjustment upon one of his posters without making it look like an utter failure. Picking the wrong color, picking the wrong font, just to name a few of the problems. So I see his skill is a little more difficult than you thought. His work may be repetitive, however he has built an entire logo and company upon this repetition, thereby adapting to the current culture very well.

I find it funny that you persistently poke fun at Fairey's skills, however you are unable to make the most minimal adjustment upon one of his posters without making it look like an utter failure. Picking the wrong color, picking the wrong font, just to name a few of the problems. So I see his skill is a little more difficult than you thought. His work may be repetitive, however he has built an entire logo and company upon this repetition, thereby adapting to the current culture very well.

Because i'm sure he cared to actually make it look good, right? He just put the word on there. He doesn't care what the color is, i'm sure. Nice article, also.

Ok's got it. Life is short and Fairey is tedious. Imitating him even more so.

perhaps you are reading in to this a bit much?

From what I understand Shepard Fairey is a graphic designer who has had a bit of success lately. There really doesn't seem to be a need to compare him (and I know you weren't comparing as much as touting your own artistic knowledge, however narrow-minded it may have read) to people like Robert Crumb or Peter Paul Rubens (these two struck me as completely bizarre)???

just saw this

http://www.supertouchart.com/2009/02/02/editorial-the-medium-is-the-message-shepard-fairey-and-the-art-of-appropriation/

Why a bunch of crying losers here. Obama won and the world should be a better place for it. Too many 'ye-haw' idiots got the world to where it is today.
CB

Well, what makes you think that he's not just another ye-haw idiot in a real sharp suit?

My Favorite

http://www.resistnet.com/video/hitler-rants-about-the

Find more videos like this on The Patriotic Resistance

Anyone know this person who posted...

We created these at work.
(Based off the Obama "HOPE" poster by Fairey)
Posted by: Emd at March 14, 2008 6:52 AM

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j59/emd2k3/hope_comeback.jpg

I would love a high rez Bob Hope graphic to make a poster for our USO. Thanks. Greg gardner5 at mac.com

We created these at work.
(Based off the Obama "HOPE" poster by Fairey)
Posted by: Emd at March 14, 2008 6:52 AM

I would love a high rez Bob Hope graphic to make a poster for our USO. Thanks. Greg gardner5 at mac.com