One can’t look back on President Barack Obama’s campaign in 2008 without immediately visualizing the now famous image of a stylized candidate Obama gazing out into the future. The image owes its brilliance, in part, to the simplicity of its technique, which has long been the trademark of its artist, Shepard Fairey. Already something of an icon for his well known Obey Giant campaign in which images of Andre The Giant were plastered on surfaces in nearly every urban area in America, Fairey’s star rose even further with his contribution to the ascendancy of Mr. Obama. His fortunes however seem to have mirrored those of the president over the past year, as Obama’s hipster hagiographer has been exposed as not only a hypocrite, but as a liar as well.
In full disclosure, I should admit that that I’m something of a collector of Fairey’s work. On the walls of my studio apartment hang portraits of Joey Ramone, the Maoist Zapatist Subcomandante Marcos (if you even know who that is you’re either a lefty artist or a right-wing producer/writer who needs to get out more often), and a signed and matching numbered set of 4 characters from the Godfather films, all having been given the patented Shepard Fairey treatment. While his artwork certainly more interesting than my whitewashed walls, I have come to despise Mr. Fairey’s politics and the blatant hypocrisy he displays as a result of his idol worship of Obama.
Mr. Fairey, who has shown admiration for assorted uber-leftists ranging from Noam Chomsky, to Vladimir Lenin, to Chairman Mao (all of whom have been subjects f his work) has built a commercial empire that in addition to selling his print work, hawks nearly every conceivable ware. Clothing, accessories, and enough toys and tchotchke’s to make him the envy of any national retail outfit. The irony of this fact is either lost on Fairey, or he has chosen to remain mum about it for reasons that are understandable; as silence is always easier than admission of ones own hypocrisy, no matter how apparent it is to everyone else.
The Obama portrait is somewhat typical of Fairey’s print work, which is highly influenced by elements of street art and leftist propaganda. Fairey’s use of these themes is no doubt in part due to his personal far-left politics. It is little why then he would apply his talents to the support of such an obvious radical like Mr. Obama.
For many, the portrait brings to mind the specter of Big Brother gazing into the beaten and submissive souls that occupied the horrorscape of a world Orwell created in 1984. On an almost a daily basis, the irony of Fairey’s image grows more apparent as Obama, who rose to prominence as a supposed warrior against the excessive executive authority under George W. Bush, shows as great a fetish for it as Bush ever did. The ever defiant Fairey however seems to be in a deep denial about this fact.
Obama’s use of signing statements for example, something he specifically admonished the Bush administration for during the campaign, is a testament to his reversal on opposition to concentration of power in the executive branch. Beyond Bush, Obama has packed his executive branch with dozens of new Czar positions that exist beyond the oversight of the legislative branch. Unelected and unconfirmed Obama loyalists now command billion dollar budgets to be applied to matters both foreign and domestic. Accountability and transparency are nearly non existent.
When asked about the poster portraying President Obama as Heath Ledger’s Joker, Fairey had this to say about the unknown artist, “Maybe they’re frustrated and don’t understand the whole situation.” In other words, those who criticize Obama just don’t get it. How profound! The self righteous champion of most causes to the left of Che Guevara, clearly shows that he is willing to dismiss violations of key campaign promises. His eagerness to ignore Obama’s obvious shortcomings betrays his indulgence in personality worship. Way to stick to your guns Shep.
But complacency in Mr. Obama’s manipulation of the American electorate and his ensuing descent in the polls are not the only misfortunes to befall Fairey. In 2009, the artist became the subject of a lawsuit that claimed that he had used an Associated Press image snapped by photographer Mannie Garcia as the source for his portrait, without authorization. Fairey’s defense was two fold; first that his use of the photograph constituted fair use; second that the photograph he used was different than the one that the AP claimed.
The problem with this defense was that anyone who saw the photograph and the portrait side by side would quickly realize how laughable Fairey’s claim was, and what gumption it took to have even have made the claim in the first place.
In new court filings released this week, Fairey states for the record that “the AP is correct about which photo I used…and that I was mistaken. While I initially believed that the photo I referenced was a different one, I discovered early on in the case that I was wrong. In an attempt to conceal my mistake I submitted false images and deleted other images.” For someone who so despised the dishonesty of the previous administration, Fairey seemed to have no hesitation in when it came to lying to save his own skin.
But even before Fairey undermined his defense with his fabrications, some were already criticizing the fact that he was hiding behind “fair use” considering that he has shown contempt for the very same principal in past. Consider for example the case of illustrator Baxter Orr. In 2008, Orr appropriated Fairey’s iconic Andre the Giant Obey image. In an obvious attempt at parody, Orr replaced the giant’s mouth with a surgical mask and swapped out the word “Obey” for “Protect”. Fairey protested the usage, and Orr was forced to promptly obey when he was presented with a cease-and-desist letter from Fairey’s legal team.
To be a liar is one thing; to be inconsistent however is unforgivable.
By the 2012 election, I predict that Fairey’s famous image will have found its way down the memory hole to never again see the light of day, as over the course of Mr. Obama’s presidency it will have gone from fame to of infamy. However I sincerely hope that Fairey himself will have a career that lasts a long time; hopefully longer than the damage left in the wake of his most famous subject.
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Nick Rizzuto is the Producer of The Wilkow Majority on SIRIUS XM Radio.
