This morning a group of us went to see the Shepard Fairey retrospective at the ICA in Boston. Having lived through the viral spread of Andre the Giant and the OBEY stickers and stencils in Boston and Providence, I had a preconceived idea about what it would be like to see his work assembled in the formality of an indoor gallery space. My expectations were low, I’ll be honest. Street artists, from Bansky to Os Gemeos, have achieved a very particular kind of cultural significance. But my curiosity and acknowlegement of their work were not bucketed with my personal artistic practices or intentions. Heavily iconized and graphic in nature, Fairey and his cohorts were using visual forms for a different set of intentions than I am employing with my work. Street art is political. Ironic. Cryptic. Sarcastic. All valid projects in and of themselves, but that’s not the program I’m watching in my studio.
The show at the ICA changed my view utterly. Shepard, while holding on to his populist and political roots, is a master collagist. The murals on display are layered and complex, full of innuendo and suggestion. I felt my resistance collapse into those surfaces immediately. His immense murals have gorgeous texturing with layers of newspapers, wallpaper, and recycled imagery, an amazingly delicate backdrop to his fist thrusting imagery.
The controversy around Fairey’s catapult from street artist to a museum retrospective—and around Fairey himself—is just so much added theatricity, although the meta of the meta is too ironic at times to not comment on. (Example: In these rooms full of “appropriated” images—many of them in litigation as I write this—visitors are not allowed to take any pictures of the works. And Shepard was arrested last night for two outstanding warrants as he arrived to DJ his show opening. Which of course could be a stunt in and of itself. Once again, the meta of the meta…) Putting aside all the Obama flywheel fame and urban legending around Fairey’s guerilla art tactics, Fairey is doing something extraordinary visually. He has found his way onto that fragile parapet between mass appeal and museum-quality (read: elitist) work. Between political content and a fresh and memorable aesthetic statement. Between an art that is detached and emotionally cool and one that is deeply engrossing and emotionally engaged.
From an interview with Fairey in the New York Times:
“I’m a populist,” Mr. Fairey said in an interview with a portrait gallery curator. “I’m trying to reach as many people as possible.”
“I love the concept in fine art of making a masterpiece, something that will endure,” he said, adding that he understood, too, how unlikely that is for anyone. “But I also understand how short the attention span of most consumers is and that you really need to work with the metabolism of consumer culture a lot of the time to make something relevant within the zeitgeist.”
Included in the documentation for the show is Fairey’s 1990 statement about his work. Worth a read even nine years later:
The OBEY sticker campaign can be explained as an experiment in Phenomenology. Heidegger describes Phenomenology as “the process of letting things manifest themselves.” Phenomenology attempts to enable people to see clearly something that is right before their eyes but obscured; things that are so taken for granted that they are muted by abstract observation.
The first aim of phenomenology is to reawaken a sense of wonder about one’s environment. The OBEY sticker attempts to stimulate curiosity and bring people to question both the sticker and their relationship with their surroundings. Because people are not used to seeing advertisements or propaganda for which the product or motive is not obvious, frequent and novel encounters with the sticker provoke thought and possible frustration, nevertheless revitalizing the viewer’s perception and attention to detail. The sticker has no meaning but exists only to cause people to react, to contemplate and search for meaning in the sticker. Because OBEY has no actual meaning, the various reactions and interpretations of those who view it reflect their personality and the nature of their sensibilities.
Many people who are familiar with the sticker find the image itself amusing, recognizing it as nonsensical, and are able to derive straightforward visual pleasure without burdening themselves with an explanation. The paranoid or conservative viewer however may be confused by the sticker’s persistent presence and condemn it as an underground cult with subversive intentions. Many stickers have been peeled down by people who were annoyed by them, considering them an eye sore and an act of petty vandalism, which is ironic considering the number of commercial graphic images everyone in American society is assaulted with daily.
Another phenomenon the sticker has brought to light is the trendy and conspicuously consumptive nature of many members of society. For those who have been surrounded by the sticker, its familiarity and cultural resonance is comforting and owning a sticker provides a souvenir or keepsake, a memento. People have often demanded the sticker merely because they have seen it everywhere and possessing a sticker provides a sense of belonging. The Giant sticker seems mostly to be embraced by those who are (or at least want to seem to be) rebellious. Even though these people may not know the meaning of the sticker, they enjoy its slightly disruptive underground quality and wish to contribute to the furthering of its humorous and absurd presence which seems to somehow be antiestablishment/societal convention. Giant stickers are both embraced and rejected, the reason behind which, upon examination reflects the psyche of the viewer. Whether the reaction be positive or negative, the stickers existence is worthy as long as it causes people to consider the details and meanings of their surroundings. In the name of fun and observation.
The ICA is free on Thursday nights starting at 5:30. If you live in the Boston area, don’t miss this show.
I wrote a comment on your previous post. I didn’t know if it was too late…
[…] For another view of the art of Shepard Fairey, visit Slow Muse here. […]
I have to admit that I’ve never heard of the artist, other than through the piece at MadSilence’s site that led me here. Nonetheless I have to say:
Populist Phenomenology!!
Who’s kidding whom? Fairey of course does not say he’s a ‘populist phenomenologist’ but he does say he’s a populist and that he’s inspired by phenomenology. So it’s not too big a jump.
And it’s fine with me if he thinks he can be such a thing. But he reminds me of a very long tradition in art that confuses its own elitism with populism. I’m a bit of a fan of elitism in the sense that I think the best art often isn’t immediately accessible to the average person. All accomplishments in any field require an expertise that may seem elitist to some. And I’m sure the author can understand that. If he truly believed in a politician for everyman, a non-elitist, he would have made Joe The Plumber posters not Obama posters. He chose to portray someone he thought was better than JTP.
Is this exercise of judgment on his part elitism? Not in my book. Or if so it is good elitism, the elitism that is required of a master rather than a journeyman in any field.
However I think that’s a far cry from talking about Heidegger and populism. The average person would run screaming, his eyeballs rolling out of his head, after a few pages of reading Heidegger. By the same token I think Fairey and other artists, have to be kidding themselves if they really believe that viewers look anew at their art when it seems to be a perfectly familiar and mundane object. It doesn’t cause them to think about it, to view it with a Heidegerrian freshness. They ignore it. To think otherwise is true elitism.
I don’t want to pounce on Fairey for this, especially as just about all I know about him is based on what’s written here. He’s part of a 100-year old tradition. All these enlightened people striving to enlighten the bourgeois hoi-polloi. This is silly. And it truly smacks of both elitism and wishful thinking.
I think it would be more honest to say that such art may get ‘art goers’ to buy into whatever change of consciousness or perception that the artist says he intends. But people who frequent art galleries are not the general public. Affecting them is by no means exercising populism.
It’s been many years since I’ve read him but I do know one poet who seemed to be something of a populist phenomenologist. That was Pablo Neruda. But I think Fairey is a far cry from Neruda. The average person, if I recall correctly and I may not, I think could truly get something from Neruda. I think that they might feel that Neruda helped them to see the world anew. I have a hard time believing that would occur with Fairey. And that in itself is nothing horrible. I just have a hard time reading artists who say such things without thinking that they are being elitist not populist.
Ken, Thanks for stopping by.
Your comment raises a lot of valid questions regarding elitism and populism, regarding Fairey as well as for a number of other artists.
I am of the opinion that we can never fully comprehend the intention of the artist, even if he/she appears to be forthcoming or willing to articulate those issues to others. Fairey has tapped into something much larger than his own intention allows, and part of the frisson around him is the depth of the Zeitgeist his work seems to have touched. So while I have posted his statement, which I found interesting, that does not mean I believe that he has achieved what he says he set out to do. I think it is worthwhile in the context of his work to read what he said, but it isn’t the complete story. Not by any means.
It’s an ongoing and lively debate, one that is compelling enough to continue to follow.
Hi Deborah,
I can’t at all argue with you that we can’t fully comprehend the intention of the artist, even in their own writings. As I’ve never seen his work and have only read about it, and read what he’s written, I’m obviously taking a chance on making any comments at all about it. So I won’t say anymore. I’d feel much freer to say more if I’d actually seen some of it.
What he wrote reminded me of a general tendency I’ve seen in some art of the last 100 years that I don’t really like. So that’s what got me going, perhaps unfairly to Fairey.
Ken
Ken,
I think I know what you are saying about a general tendency among contemporary artists that is common and, well, just plain tiresome. That topic would be a useful posting in and of itself at some point.
Thanks for this piece, I enjoyed reading it. A bit jealous about not being able to see the ICA show myself, though.:)