The debate over Shepard Fairey’s use of Mannie Garcia’s photograph of Barack Obama to create the iconic “Hope” poster continued on Fresh Air with Terri Gross last Thursday.
But one of my new found favorite blogs, My Art Space has been following the Shephard Fairey controversy with interviews of Los Angeles street artists. One of these artists, The Phantom Street Artist has issued a direct challenge to Fairey.
Word on the street.
6 comments:
“Shephard pillages the work of important political and cultural movements and economically authors the oeuvre of artists like Rene Mederos and other political activists along with their motifs and images to advance his own market and public relations interest.”
As someone who studied Latino art, culture, and theory, I cannot help but see the trove from which he "borrows" is a wealth Latin American traditions.
His ability to go about this almost un-noticed rest somewhere in our own comfortable ignorance of the influence of Latin American art on modern American art styles.
American exploitation of Latin American/Latino workers expands well beyond agriculture into the arts.
Fairey has finally been revealed to the world through being exposed of his true sources. His work is inevitably referenced from important Latin American traditions and important movements like the Black Panthers. Now he is a Post Colonial Capitalist exploiting Multi Culturalism Markets to serve only his own economic need in the interest of being Radical chic? Now he is suing the AP unheard of by common everyday artists to justify his infringed actions. All he has left in his bag of tricks is a decade of copyright violations. He and his publicist officers manufacture hacked press releases that he is operating under the umbrella of Fair Use but Fair Use is limited for a reason by the law to protect and safeguard important cultural, oeuvres, movements and history. Now he has retained the best Lawyers in his land to justify his countless violations, even if the lawyers clear his name by the Fairey buying his way of out the legal maze he has foolishly created, he has inevitably lost integrity in the court of public opinion.
When the true voice of the media its people critique and or question his ignorant actions his Fairey camp of publicists and handlers cite jealously. Has anyone in the Faireyland camp ever heard of the several hundred year history of criticism. A political commentator an artist he is NOT a cultural thief motivated by cash he is...
Do you yourself a favor and take your money and invest in going back to school Fairey or afford yourself better educated publicists its obvious your art is motivated by Social Climbing Mt Cash-more of Lifestyle, Personality Cult and Money not great Art.
Or get a gig playing another DJ opening session for Janes Addiction where you could be billed as “Shepard Fairey my name is DJ I Bite It”!!
Rage Against the Shepard Fairey Publicity Machine...
well here is the thing.. street art its street art the copyright of other people's work it sucks but when you put it as street art its like you don't really get any recognition, you might say but Shepard has publicist, and lawyers well c'mon he has various business to run. some of you say that he has stolen from Latin art and that he has no right because is not his culture well as a Latin person he has been the only guy who showed Latin art to the WHOLE public i have never seen a Latin artist put up the work he is putting and don't say because he is popular. the medium he is using its graffiti sure he might have stuff on galleries but street art which he hasn't trustfully left yet it is what motivates younger culture something that a lot of artist are lacking he has paid his dues with the law and yet the law likes how he motivates kids to start doing art and pretty much leave gangs and a lot of drugs i know this because i am more into the art i produce than joining a gang or doing drugs.. some of you say that he is fake because he comes out in TV shows and on the radio.. well he does that because the work he shows make people look at his way.. and for last if Shepard wasn't that famous a lot of you wouldn't be talking about him and yet he will probably put the same amount of work in the streets are most of you are or are NOT!..
That last Anonymous - many of us are quite interested in this topic. Please at least use punctuation so we can understand you. I'm not even going to bother trying to decipher that.
Each time the RIP OFF ARTIST Shepard Fairey is critique in the Media he and his minions can only hurl insulting epitaphs or smear campaigns having no reasonable argument or substantial response to such violations of infringed actions... The opponents to Shepard Fairey are not one singular individual but many who have taken a stand against his Greed and Exploitative Acts, Today his infringed and unimaginative violations will forever haunt him and his name to the grave.
If carefully examined, the rebellious patina and ersatz activism of Shepard Fairey’s art gives way to reveal little in the way of political imagination. Ultimately his work is the very embodiment of "radical chic", bereft of historical memory and offering only feeble gestures, babbling incoherencies, and obscurantism as a challenge to the deplorable state of the world. Such an artist like Shepard Fairey cannot provide us with a critical assessment of where we stand today.
Mark Vallens
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