Category: Featured Posts

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Everything Shepard Fairey

It seems like Shepard Fairey is everywhere lately, so I thought I’d post a summary of all that’s been going on and the relevant links.

Shepard Fairey at the ICA Boston. Photo by christianrholland
Shepard Fairey at the ICA Boston. Photo by christianrholland
  • To start, Shepard Fairey was arrested on Friday as he entering a party for his show which opened last week at The ICA Boston. Warrents for his arrested dated as far back as 2000. Has Posterboy started a trend of police arresting street artists at their own shows? Maybe it’s time to go back to secret identities. The irony of the whole situation is that just hours previous to his arrest, Shepard Fairey was unveiling a mural outside of Boston’s city hall and shaking the mayor’s hand. Odd that the cops didn’t show up to that event… Though Shepard Fairey is has questioned the “motivation and timing” of his arrest, I’d say with all that Fairey knows about advertising, it’s just as likely he called up the police himself and left an anonymous tip of his whereabouts. After all, this news even hit The Guardian here in London. Sounds like great publicity to me. Oh, and apparently he’s pled “not guilty!” I guess he can always claim that his poster crews did the pasting, which is probably the case for most of the work he’s in trouble for.
  • The Associated Press is complaining about copyright infringement because Fairey used a photograph of theirs as the basis for his “Hope” poster (be aware, the article linked to is actually written by the AP).
  • Fairey is preempting a lawsuit from the AP by instead suing them himself and asking a judge to just admit that his Obama posters are transformative and “fair use.” (some interesting and well articulated thoughts on the reprecutions of these two stories at Just Seeds)
  • And this leads us to the whole “is Fairey a legit artist or just a thieving sell-out” debate. I wrote about this last week in a post called “Is Shepard Fairey a Plagiarizing Half-Wit?” and asked readers to respond with their own opinions. Well I got plenty of responses both on the blog and on Twitter. I’d encourage you to read the comment thread, but here are a few highlights:
    * “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?” – Astrogirl
    * “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.” – Spoons
    * “I consider Fairey’s work to be along the lines of early Hip Hop producers. ‘Sampling is not a crime’.” – Facet
  • Various people, commenter Rolf Harris and Just Seeds in particular, have sent me new links on the top of criticism of Fairey’s work:
    * More on Fairey’s supposed plagarism, perhaps a more fair appraisal
    * Supertouch, a blog which Fairey is associated with, defends him against claims of plagiarism
    * It seems that last year, Fairey almost sued another artist for making parodies of Fairey’s images.
    * As briefly mentioned in my last post on Fairey, he’s recently designed an advertising campaign for Saks 5th Avenue called “Want It!”. Seem a bit at odds with his public persona, but I guess it’s too late for anybody in the art establishment to care…

Photo from christianrholland

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Is Shepard Fairey a Plagiarizing Half-Wit?

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 Moser from Boston Globe

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.

Continue reading “Is Shepard Fairey a Plagiarizing Half-Wit?”

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Thoughts on Bonhams February Auction

Spent some time today checking out the catolog for the February 24th urban art auction at Bonhams in London. A few people have noted the extremely high number of Banksy lots (22 of 78) and dismissed this auction, but I’ve found a few potential deals to be had. If you’ve got the money to spend and you can weed through the crap, people are looking to sell some really nice work. Here’s what I’ve found:

1. Banksy – Kate Moss (series of 6)
Estimate: £100,000 – 150,000

Banksy Kate Moss

There was a time when just one of these 6 could go for £100,000. Perhaps Banksy’s most sought after print. The winner of this auction will be a very lucky man/woman in a decade. Continue reading “Thoughts on Bonhams February Auction”

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Posterboy Arrest: Photographer Jim Kiernan’s Account

Photo by Jim Kiernan
Work by Posterboy, Ellis G., and Aakash Nihalani. Photo by Jim Kiernan

Yesterday The Gothamist reported that Posterboy was arrested on Friday night. Jim Kiernan, who was supposed to be photographing Posterboy on Friday, has been kind enough to give us his take on what happened.

The back story is that I started as a writer way back in the day.  I dropped that a long time ago but never lost interest in all things street-related.  I’m fully digging the Street Art movement that’s popped up in earnest over the last few years.  I have many favorite artists but Poster Boy just really struck a chord with me.  In my opinion he’s the latest branch of the family tree that begat Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat.  For real, I think he’s that talented.

Anyway I’m always documenting the underground.  For many years I videotaped bands (mainly Punk Rock stuff but other genres as well).  Mayor Guilani effectively snuffed out many of the venues that I used to shoot in and the NYC real estate market killed most of the rest.  So what to do?  Well, I picked up a still camera and have made that my thing for the last several years.  Of course I’m still all about the underground, the offbeat, the artistic.  So I decided to start shooting street art.  Not all that original but fun and visual and very satisfying.  I started seeing Poster Boy’s stuff underground and didn’t know who he was.  After researching a bit I figured out who he was and started following him.

Long story short I contacted him and asked him if he was down for me to tag along and shoot while he did his thing.  I sent him a few shots from a session I did with Chico L.E.S., an old school Lower East Side NYC graf muralist.  He dug my stuff and we were supposed to hook up some time in February.  Yesterday afternoon at around 3:30 my phone rings.  I usually always screen everybody but I manage a literary fiction author on the side named Mike Guinzburg and I thought the number was Mike’s.  He goes “you know who this is, right?” and I said yeah,  Mike.  “Nope, it’s Poster Boy man.  I’m doing a collaboration with Ellis G., (the chalk artist) and Aakash for a ‘friendswelove.com‘ benefit.  Can you grab your cameras and get down here in about an hour?”

Well, the bad news was that I was at work and my cameras were at home.  I told him I’m try to borrow a camera and get down there.  He gave me the cross streets and told me to call him when I was in the area.  I couldn’t get my hands on a decent camera so I said fuck, bailed from work, bolted home and grabbed my gear.  By the time I got downtown it was about 6:30 give or take.  I tried calling him but got voice mail.  Left a message, said fuck it and started walking around shooting street art (I was one block from where Banksy just put up on of his three big NYC full building pieces and there’s a ton of good spots that get hit).  I walked around shooting for about an hour, called him again, left another message and then kept on shooting on the streets.

About half an hour later, I was freezing my ass off and my cell phone battery was about to die.  I ducked into an ATM on the corner to get warm and to call him one last time.  Again, voice mail.  I told him I was going to bail and that we’d have to hook up next time.  BUT, when I walked outside and there were a bunch of Ellis G. pieces on the sidewalk, including the exact address of the event (which I hadn’t known).  While I was on the phone leaving Poster Boy a message telling him I was bailing, Ellis G. was hitting the sidewalk.  If that’s not a sign I don’t know what is.  Streets are talking, indeed.

So I went to this loft space on the 5th floor.  There were collaborations and other pieces on the walls and a DJ spinning.  I grabbed a drink and started shooting.  Ellis G. came up to me to ask me who I was shooting for and I told him I was supposed to meet up with Poster Boy, etc.  That’s when I found out he got popped.  The cops had been trying to track him down for a while I guess and his name was on the benefit flyer and said he would be in attendance.  They had a plainclothes cop on the street and that’s who nabbed him.  Talk about bullshit.  We’ve got major shit going down on the streets in NYC every day and THIS is what the cops are spending their time on?  Unreal.  It was definitely a bummer but Ellis and Aakash got right to work throwing up a tribute collabo for Poster Boy.

I was talking with PB’s cousin for much of the night and there was no update on his case or his bail or anything.  I offered to personally post bail on him but we couldn’t get any info.  I still don’t know what’s going on but I’m sure that all of this is just a speed bump.  No way are the cops going to keep Poster Boy down.  He’s got all of the right ideas and some of the purest artistic intentions I’ve seen so I’m sure we’ll be hearing from him again soon.

Thanks to Jim Kiernan for his help and for the photo at the top of this post. Hopefully Posterboy will be back out on the streets soon.

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Breaking: Posterboy Arrested by Undercover Cop

Photo by Posterboy NYC
Photo by Posterboy

From The Gothamist:

Last night before a benefit he was scheduled to participate in at a loft in Soho, the street artist known as Poster Boy was arrested by an undercover cop. Poster Boy was listed on a flyer for the event, a festival put on for Friends We Love, a series of videos documenting the process of a dozen different artists, including Poster Boy, who talked with us just last week.

Photographer Jim Kiernan tipped us off to the arrest. He arrived at event at Broadway and Howard Street to meet up with Poster Boy around 7 p.m., but police had already arrived after spotting the Poster Boy’s name on the flyer. Kiernan says, “There was an undercover cop on the block and they came and picked him up. As far as I know, he’s still in Central Booking right now and waiting to get in front of a judge…It’s the second time they’ve gotten him.”

Read the rest at The Gothamist

Photo from Posterboy

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Finally: The Q&A with Veng

Veng Canvas

Since Vandalog started 100-some days ago, I’ve mentioned Veng four times. Why is that? It’s not just because I have nothing to talk about. It’s because one, I wanted to feature him and his crew, Robots Will Kill; two, Andrew Michael Ford from Ad Hoc Art mentioned them as well when he spoke about great street artists in NYC; three, Veng knows New York graffiti and street art, so he was part of my Great in ’08 series; and four, he was recently had some work in the From The Streets of Brooklyn exhibition at Thinkspace Art Gallery. But mostly, it’s because he’d good at what he does.

Veng is one of those artists blurring the line between street art and graffiti. I’ve been looking forward to this interview for a while. I think Veng is one of the most important artists to be watching in 2009, and I had to make sure Vandalog readers get to know him. Sorry if I sound like a bit over-enthusiastic, but it’s rare to find an artist of such talent who is not very well known outside of his home town.

I would try to describe Veng’s work, but he does a much better job, so I’ll just get to the Q&A.

RJ: How long have you been painting, graffiti/street art or otherwise?
Veng: I have been painting and drawing since I was little kid, and got into graffiti around the age of 12.

Veng Painting

RJ: Why do you paint on the street?
Veng: For me painting on the street is in the excitement that each time you go out it’s different from the last time. The people you can meet while out painting or pasting can give you opportunities for stories I normally never would have had if all my time was just spent traditionally in a studio. Also the architecture of a city and how it gives you countless surfaces to place your work within is also a draw. Continue reading “Finally: The Q&A with Veng”

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3 Reasons A Recession Is Good For Street Art

Work by K-Guy. Photo by K-Guy
Work by K-Guy. Photo by K-Guy

Everybody’s been talking about how the recession is going to destroy every part of our economy, and yeah, it probably will, but it’s not all bad new… street art might actually get a boost in the long run thanks to this economic downturn.

Here are three possible advantages for street art in this recession:

1. The not very talented artists who have found their way into galleries are going to be put in their place.
So many people have been buying street art either for the name of the artist, or just because it is street art. This year, some collectors are concerned that even great artists won’t sell much work. People have stopped buying for name or genre recognition. Collectors are buying those “special pieces” that they feel are particularly great. At the end of this recession, there are going to be a lot fewer crap street artists because their work  is going to stop selling. Nobody wants to buy a piece any more just because the Sotheby’s catalog describes it as “stencil and spray paint on found wood.” Continue reading “3 Reasons A Recession Is Good For Street Art”