Is Shepard Fairey a Plagiarizing Half-Wit?
Posted: February 3rd, 2009 | Author: RJ | Category: Art News, Featured Posts | Tags: obey, shepard fairey | 17 Comments »UPDATE – 11:48pm February 4th: The Huffington Post has an article which says the AP is accusing Shepard Fairey of stealing one of their photographs for his Obama posters. Shepard Fairey admits he used their image and is claiming fair use. Even though I may wish Shepard Fairey would properly credit sources, I’m also a big fan of fair use. It will be interesting to see what happens.
Shepard Fairey Obama poster fame is a plagiarist and unimaginative artist. At least that’s what Dan Wasserman of The Boston Globe considers and artist Mark Vallen seems to believe.
From the Boston Globe:
Vallen makes a strong case that Fairey appropriates, without attribution, the images and designs of other artists. He posts multiple examples, including art from the Czechoslvakian Prague Spring, art from the Industrial Workers of the World, Cuban poster art of the 60s and this example (left) directly copying the art nouveau drawing of Koloman Moser (1868-1918) (right).
Fairey seems at ease with his borrowing. In the 450-page catalog for the ICA show, he responds: “This guy Mark Vallen found every reference in every poster and every t-shirt that I’ve ever used. Out of hundreds of images, there’s a dozen or so that were based on things from historical posters. First of all, I’m always assuming that these posters are known by people, so my referencing is not a big secret. These aren’t obscure images… Usually I’m using an image as an intentional reference.” But his art itself makes no mention of its sources or derivative nature, and, contrary to Fairley’s assertions, much of the art he copies (like Moser’s) is not famous enough to be well-known to most of his audience.
Of course, I think most fans of OBEY and Shepard Fairey are aware that Shepard Fairey does re-appropriate some imagery or (such as in the case of his Obama poster) create his designs by transforming a photograph into his trademark style, but Vallen’s accussations are of outright plagerism. I think Shepard Fairey is one of the most talented guys working right now, but it does worry me a bit how much of his work is really done by artists from 100 years ago. I certainly was not familiar with Moser’s work, and Vallen’s many examples in his article show just how often this happens with OBEY clothing or posters. Shepard Fairey even seems to be the root of that Nazi Skull t-shirt Wal-Mart was selling a few years back.
Although I won’t go as far as Vallen in my condemnation of Shepard Fairey (I am still a fan), I have to agree with Wasserman here. Part of the OBEY campaign’s core is to reuse old imagery and propoganda to fit our modern times, and that’s part of what makes it so great, but Shepard Fairey really should find a way to attribute original artists behind the source material. I don’t expect him to start footnoting posters, but he could easily do something along those lines in his books or at his gallery and museum shows. Instead, he’s just ignoring the fact that he’s taken these images from other people who worked hard to create them.
Another point Wasserman makes is about whether Shepard Fairey is head of a leftist and anti-consumerist art factory or a design agency.
He inveighs against the depredations of consumer culture, but his design firm works on a “Want It!” campaign for Saks Fifth Avenue. He wants the street cred of a revolutionary artist extolling freedom fighters and quoting Noam Chomsky while doing “guerrilla” marketing campaigns for Netscape and Pepsi.
I’ve written about this before, and I think it is a serious threat to Shepard Fairey’s long term street cred and respect. How can a street artist whose core image (OBEY) is anti-consumerist design advertising campaigns for the very corporations that he is supposedly fighting against? I don’t mind a Black Eyed Peas album cover now and again (even Banksy did a Blur album cover), but there is no way that he can claim “I was just taking the piss” when he’s making his money helping Saks Fifth Avenue sell more cashmere sweaters. It’s not like he couldn’t make a living purely as an artist if he wanted to. If I ever meet the man, these issues are the second and third things I’m asking him about (after “Can I have a free print?” of course).
In the end, I’m still a fan, just a slightly more trepidatious one. After all, he got Obama elected, and if you can compartmentalize, he still creates extremely powerful images.
I’ll be watching the comments on this post closely. What do you think of Shepard Fairey’s commercial work and his reuse of other people’s images? Is it all in good fun, or does this hurt his image?
Via SLAMXHYPE
Photos from OBEY Giant and The Boston Globe (see how crediting is done?)
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Astrogirl (http://twitter.com/Astrogirl) said this over twitter about this post so I thought I’d share it here:
“The bigger you get the more people want to take you out. It is what it is….who’s going to be remembered? Shepard or the critic?”
I have to say that this is something I should have put in the post. IMHO, there is some of that “let’s knock the big artist down a couple pegs” going on here, but it still doesn’t excuse Shepard Fairey’s actions.
I was always wary of his obvious plagiarism and the contradictions between his statements and his practice, but I warmed a bit to him after seeing this interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awKJQ-HfEHc
However, this idea that he is subverting consumerism with the OBEY series somewhat falls on its face when the images end up creating an OBEY brand or being sold as bags and T-shirts purely because they feature the logo. If it ever was a subversive act, the OBEY stuff has now clearly become a brand displayed (and of course marketed) for its own sake.
When he takes revolutionary images (e.g. Cuban revolutionary posters) and turns them into”viva la posse” he is subverting the revolutionary potential, not creating one – the opposite of what he says his purpose is. His series with Angela Davies and Zapatista images is not a tribute or even an attempt to contribute to the original political aims. He is recycling powerful images to make a shallow gesture.
Take him purely as an artist and the plagiarism does not impress. Take him as some kind of activist and for all his pretense at radicalness he is very clearly desperate to establish himself as an important figure in the (very conservative and elite) art world.
How much more establishment can you get than helping to elect a president?
[...] A Boston Globe blog gives Shepard Fairey the smackdown, referring to him as a “graphic pickpocket.” (Vandalog.) [...]
Any stencil artist that uses a photograph taken from Google Images or just the internet in general could be accused of the same thing, and that covers nearly all of us.
It’s a storm in a tea cup.
Did anyone actually think that his work was completely original anyway?
Spoons: I agree that that video does show an important side to Shepard Fairey, but it’s a side that most street artists have I think. Still a cool video. If he didn’t have a clothing company, this would be different, but he does have a clothing company. As you say, he’s “recycling powerful images to make a shallow gesture.” Without the clothing, then his message of “join the OBEY posse” would not be shallow. It would be a statement as he says he intends it to be. Now though, that posse is a brand you can buy overpriced pants from. That’s the concern that I think both of us have with the work.
Facet: I think that a. people are becoming much more wary of artists who just take things off google and make stencils out of them. I did that for Cans Festival, I don’t call myself an artist. There are some cases though where that happens and the work is significantly transformed (a very hard line to draw) and its different. For example, C215′s image of a man smoking, but C215 normally uses his own photographs as a base for his stencils, so I can accept tha occasional transformation of somebody else’s work. What Shepard Fairey is shown doing in some of these is just taking the somebody’s work, making it red and black, and throwing an OBEY star logo on it. Much of the time, he isn’t even changing the context in a smart way like some artists do (see: Banksy’s Golf Sale image). Of course people are aware that Shepard Fairey’s work isn’t entirely original, but I personally just wasn’t aware of the extent. Mark Vallen’s article, however bias it might be, shows some pretty damning stuff.
RJ: It’s refreshing to read something as articulate as your counter points.
I have no great love for Sherpard Fairey’s work, if anything the corporate/repetitive style of it annoys me. I still think he’s getting a raw deal with Dan Wasserman’s article and the furore surrounding it. Or rather the blog post by a moderately successful competing artist that was obviously the inspiration for the Boston Globe article.
I consider Fairey’s work to be along the lines of early Hip Hop producers. “Sampling is not a crime”.
Facet, are you familiar with Girl Talk? He’s a musician whose relies almost entirely on samples for his work, so if he were to actually track down everybody, get permission, and pay royalties to the copyright holders, his albums would end up costing thousands of dollars. What he does though is undoubtedly create a new work, but he also credits people and says “This was made from samples”. Look at the wikipedia pages for his albums, and each song has detailed information about samples. I think remixing and sampling is great. That’s part of the reason I release content under a Creative Commons License.
What Shepard Fairey is doing is not so much sampling something as he is changing the colors around. His canvases are more complex, but a lot of his prints and shirts seem to just be red and black versions of other people’s images.
Take his “Greetings from Iraq” piece from Vallen’s article. He changed the context and changed that image around. He should still credit it, but I would say that’s fair use.
On the other hand, Vallen talks about an OBEY shirt which is pretty much a direct copy of another painting. I can’t imagine that is fair use.
I guess its all about where you draw the “fair-use” line though, and that’s different places for different people.
Please read these two articles in addition to Vallen’s critique.
http://www.justseeds.org/blog/2009/01/yo_shepard_fairey_is_straight.html
http://www.justseeds.org/blog/2007/12/a_response_to_obey_plagiarist_1.html
This is not about knocking people who achieve success, it’s about the fact that Fairey is a parasitic cancer. It’s about time this predatory leech was exposed once and for all. Too many people riding off the back of so called ‘subversive art’ to build their brands and marketing empires. All of his fans are the same kind of brainwashed zombie hordes who wear Nike and eat at McDonalds, and can’t bear to have their brands questioned because their patterns of consumption are how they define themselves, so without all their logos to comfort them like a religion they would be revealed as the hollow consumer slaves living their lives by proxy that they really are.
Also see these links for info about his latest rip-off and how he threatened to sue somebody who dared to parody ‘his’ work! The fact that somebody of such little talent and dubious morality can be so celebrated is a sad reflection on a culture where vacuous corporate advertising masquerades as art and people lap it up because they’re too lazy to inform themselves.
Remember… OBEY! = CONSUME!
http://www.justseeds.org/blog/2009/02/shepard_fairey_white_entitleme_1.html
http://animalnewyork.com/news/2008/04/shepard-fairey-threatens-to-su.php
Hey thanks Rolf. Those are some great articles. Are you part of Just Seeds or a just a fan?
I really don’t get how he can form a clothing company which sells his “anti-brand” printed on goods made in who knows what kind of factory conditions. Totally agree with you. The people who love his stuff are the same people who want the newest custom Nike sneaker. It sounds so cliche, but they do OBEY. Look at his Want It! campaign for Saks 5th Avenue. That terrible consumerist irony is what his entire company seems founded on.
Hi V, no, I’m not part of their group as I’m UK based. I just like their site and general ethos. It seems a million miles closer to the true spirit of subversive underground art than someone like Fairey.
Okay cool, I was just curious. They are definitely some of the most authentic people I’ve seen on the web, I can see why I identify with them.
what would mr fairey say if i lifted his images, and tweaked them just a tad, and sold them??? got rich off of them???
this guy is a no talent hack,,,,,,just very business savy.
(yes paintersshop I edited your comment for language)
I think he’d do this: http://animalnewyork.com/news/2008/04/shepard-fairey-threatens-to-su.php
Here is an update on the whole Shepard Fairey issue. http://www.myartspace.com/blog/2009/02/integrity-lost-lawrence-lessig-helps.html I have to agree that Shep is being somewhat a hypocrite if you think back on those cease and desist letters he sent out in 2008.
Hello!
Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language
See you!
Your, Raiul Baztepo
I think people should be critical of Shep Fairey. I like the response this guy made to Sheps AP response. I agree with him that if Obey Giant Art Inc. wins its case again the AP it will open the doors for other companies that want to use photographers or any other art images. People need to stop painting this case out as being just a big mean media source vs. a little artist. The case involves Fairey AND Obey Giant Art Inc.! A company! And Fairey is by no means a poor artist even before the Obama poster. And it is very true that Huffington Post is not posting comments that point out these facts! Read the truth here,
http://www.myartspace.com/blog/2009/03/my-response-to-shepard-fairey.html