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music/art/culture

A Medium For Every Message

Posted on | December 17, 2009 | No Comments

andre

OBEY What?
When I started seeing Andre the Giant/OBEY stickers around town, I assumed it was an in-joke with local kids. Then I saw them in San Francisco, Austin, Los Angeles, Oahu, Durango and Salt Lake and began to wonder. It had blown up big-time and yet was completely non-defined. Was it an advertisement? A band? A skate company? Was it really a promotion for Andre the Giant? Turns out, it was an exercise in Phenomenology created by Shepard Fairey who would go on to become one of the most famous artists of our time.

According to Fairey “the first aim of Phenomenology is to reawaken a sense of wonder about one’s environment…[and] 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.” In other words, there is no hidden point or meaning other than what you give it. This is quite a puzzling concept for our consumer brains. That was the brilliance behind Fairey’s idea.

obeyOn the Move
The wildly successful Andre the Giant campaign had no marketing angle, no product to sell (OBEY as a company didn’t exist yet) and no motive other than the mass dissemination of an idea without an answer. In hindsight, it was the movement that pushed Fairey into our collective consciousness, and laid the foundation for globally recognized brand OBEY, but that all came as a result of the campaign, not as the motivation for it.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve seen Fairey’s work everywhere. He’s created posters for organizations, benefits, musicians and businesses. He’s plastered and pasted his creations onto walls the world over and made enough t-shirts to clothe skateboard and street art enthusiasts for generations.

obama1The Audacity of Art
Fairey’s most famous work is the Obama HOPE poster that was instantly adopted by supporters worldwide and although it was never officially endorsed by the Obama camp, the wave of political momentum that it provided was massive. The poster originally said PROGRESS but the non-official Obama team requested that the word HOPE be used instead. The rest is one of the great graphic art and political success stories of all time.

The iconic poster also placed Fairey front and center in the shifting landscape of copyright law in the digital age. The photo that Fairey used for his illustration was taken by Associated Press photographer Mannie Garcia. The abbreviated version of the ensuing drama goes like this: AP stated that the photograph was their property and use of it required their permission. Fairey, with the backing of the Fair Use Project filed a lawsuit against the AP seeking a “declaratory judgment that his use of the AP photograph was protected by the fair use doctrine and so did not infringe their copyright.” Garcia contends that he retains copyright to the photo according to his AP contract.

As copyright, ownership and distribution laws move at a snufalupagus pace, and the digital reality changes at the speed of thought, finding common ground between the two is a lesson in patience. Fairey isn’t the first or only artist to push the point, he just became the biggest with his Obama poster. Stay tuned as things are just starting to get good.

One thing is certain: art has the power to change minds and therefore the world.

Shepard Fairey, Barack Obama and OBEY

UPDATE: I was just tipped off that Fairey pled guilty to “some unsavory acts” including lying and destroying evidence to conceal the source of the photo he used. Check out the Huffington Post article for all the info. You can also download Fairey’s press release statement regarding his “lapse in judgement.”

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Category: Art, Culture, Design, Installation Art, Painting, Street Art
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