Fairey Tales

I remember the first time I saw the now-iconic Obama HOPE image.  It was a wintery night in Philadelphia and primary season was uncharacteristically still in full swing.  It must've been sometime in March, just about a year ago. Proud to be a Pennsylvania voter during a year it actually mattered, I was holding steadfast to my dreams of an Obama-nation despite the fact that my dear friend and high school classmate, Mike Firestone, would soon be assigned to the region to run Clinton's field campaign after a successful stint in Virginia.  

I walked into North Bowl on N. 2nd Street. Holly and I went to pay the overpriced fee to

 get our shoes and as the guy behind the counter processed my card (as per usual, I didn't have cash on me), I eyed the free postcard rack.  Staring back at me was the white, blue and red image that became increasingly familiar as the campaign progressed.  I was pretty pleased to get the last postcard and even more pleased when I realized it was a sticker.  I ended up saving it for a special occasion and eventually decided to sport it on a white tank-top along with my 1.20.09 baseball hat for a rally and canvass at the Wayne train station in mid-April when the primary officially came to town and Senator Obama was passing through on an old-fashioned whistle stop tour.  

Last week I attended the artist's first solo show at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art.  Shepard Fairey's 250 work, 20 year retrospective featured what I now know to be his widely spread "Obey Giant" images--meant to both provoke and unify, works commissioned by the ICA, revolutionaries and rock stars depicted in a pop-art meets communist propaganda styling, and, of course, one of the Obama HOPE posters (though obviously not the one now in the National Portrait Gallery).

Many, if not most, of Fairey's works challenge hierarchies and power, and criticize political leaders.  It's interesting, then, to see that the piece that spun him out of a street-based art scene and into the global spotlight (and lawsuits) is his first pro-political piece, a picture of hope.  This, to me, represents the hope of our country as much as the image itself.  

While wandering through the large exhibition, I wondered if I could snap photos, seeing as how the bulk of his work comes from using other people's photos (hence the lawsuits).  My question was quickly answered for me as I saw one of the guards rush across the adjacent gallery and nearly shouting, "No photos!" to one of the other visitors.  I couldn't help but laugh at the irony. 

The best moment for me, however, came a few days later.  My step-sister, Amy, and I went to pick up her daughter and my niece, Lilian, from a friend's house.  We stepped into the garage art-studio where Lilian, Sophia, and Emma were spray painting.  Unlike the other artists in Fairey's genre, these girls were keeping it to paper and shirts.  I said to Lil, "Spray painting?" She gave me a kind of "duh" look and informed me that it was, in fact, Shepard Fairey inspired.  So here's a guy, arrested on the opening night of his ICA show for tagging in Boston, who is now inspiring Boston's finest and most highly educated children.  I smiled as Lilian spray painted a stencil of a helicopter with the quote "Have a nice day" below it directly onto the newspaper in her own mixed-media collage.  I looked at the three girls and kindly reminded them not to take their new talents to the streets.  "Yeah, that would be illegal," they knowingly responded.