Althouse: "When I made the 'Hope' poster, I did it as a grassroots endeavor. I thought, 'I’m a street artist who’s been very critical frequently of government policy.'"

October 25, 2015

"When I made the 'Hope' poster, I did it as a grassroots endeavor. I thought, 'I’m a street artist who’s been very critical frequently of government policy.'"

"There’s no way that Obama’s campaign will think that I’m anything but toxic.'... I’m really happy that the ‘Hope’ poster has become a reference point, and I have very complex feelings about Obama as president, about how my art is sometimes reinterpreted.... But it’s a net-positive because I think what I did, coming from very few resources and from an outsider perspective, demonstrates that grassroots art can make a difference."

Said Shepard Fairey, who's got a new huge mural of a wave in Jersey City.

9 comments:

campy said...: "I have very complex feelings about Obama as president,..."

He must be a racist. Anyone who doesn't have 100% positive feelings about Obama as president is a racist.; 10/25/15, 7:18 AM
Levi Starks said...: Complex feelings.... how you feel when you know you've been conned, but still it felt so good while it was happening that given the chance to do it over again you would.; 10/25/15, 9:02 AM
chickelit said...: Fairey is unlikely to top his first major achievement. He must feel a bit like the photographer who took the iconic photo of Che Guevara.; 10/25/15, 11:14 AM
mikee said...: The iconic photo of Che is the one where he is laid out full of bullet holes, to anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together.

The HOPE poster will be looked at in decades to come much like Jimmy Carter's cardigan sweater or Carter's canoe-paddle battle with a rabbit, as another symbol of utter failure.

Compare and contrast the HOPE poster with an iconic statement: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" Which one will be more respected by history?; 10/25/15, 11:50 AM
Robert Cook said...: I like Fairey's work, but I wonder if he rues his "HOPE" poster? Obama dashed all hope of "hope" in his first months in office, and has spent the years since grinding that dashed hope into the dirt with the heels of his polished shoes.; 10/25/15, 12:04 PM
cf said...: One thing about Shep Fairey, he is consistent in his message, as this new public work demonstrates, and he is right that Americans should find his work toxic.

This new mural depicts a wave big enough to dwarf and drown the Statue of Liberty. Fairey works diligently in the "Hope" that all the idiots will "Obey", and the rest of the wrong-thinking citizens will be washed away or rounded up or stomped out. It is tragic that we can be so charmed by the power of his imagery.

<a href="http://obeygiant.com/images/2008/08/tyrant-boot-poster.jpg”>This Fairey poster</a> sums up his toxic instincts: Crush the silly bayonets with the correct BigGovernment Tyrant's Boot. I have shared this image before on this blog, saying:

"Supposedly, the poster is championing the little bayonets below, but you cannot tell me the artist is not in adoration of the power of that tyrant boot. Much like the worst of the anti-war folks I met back in the day that, in working with those few one could see they would be worse than any Nixon, power mad totalitarians those WeatherUnderground-types (-- like Obama's friend Bill Ayres, who dreamed of detaining half of America, and made bombs for Americans that Be most cruel, same as the Boston Marathon bombers' goal.) They would gladly Be the Boot. and indeed, here we are now, the Bill Ayres types ascendant along with their artists friends, the "serene police state" of hope and change Eternal. "

Fairey did not realize that Obama's ideals were as toxic as his own: to bring down this silly freedom-loving tent that is America, let them suffer and suck just like everybody else.

If he has mixed feelings about the administration, it must be because Obama has fallen short of rounding us all up.

Godspeed, America; 10/25/15, 2:27 PM
Charlie said...: "I have very complex feelings" = "I'm an idiot".; 10/25/15, 7:45 PM
Stoutcat said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/26/15, 12:54 PM
Stoutcat said...: Link: Shepherd Fairey, career plagiarist.

'Nuff said.; 10/26/15, 12:55 PM