{"id":1119,"date":"2018-06-11T21:30:18","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T21:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/?p=1119"},"modified":"2018-06-11T21:30:18","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T21:30:18","slug":"wow-work-of-the-week-shepard-fairey-sedation-pill-hpm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wow\/wow-work-of-the-week-shepard-fairey-sedation-pill-hpm","title":{"rendered":"WOW! \u2013 Work of the Week \u2013 Shepard Fairey, Sedation Pill HPM"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Shepard Fairey<\/div>\n
Sedation Pill HPM<\/div>\n
2013<\/div>\n
HPM (hand-painted multiple), screenprint and mixed media collage on paper<\/div>\n
40 x 30 in.<\/div>\n
Edition of 10<\/div>\n
Pencil signed and numbered<\/div>\n
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About the work:<\/div>\n
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IT TAKES THE SEDATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK<\/div>\n
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It\u2019s no secret, Shepard Fairey has always been open about controversial social and political topics, as evidenced in his artwork which promotes awareness of social issues. His aim in his work is to reawaken a sense of wonder about one\u2019s environment.<\/div>\n
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This is exactly what this week\u2019s Work Of the Week! WOW!, Sedation Pill HPM depicts. Shepard comments about this work, \u201cThe Sedation Pill print is inspired by the title of my favorite Public Enemy album \u201cIt Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back\u201d. I think the biggest problem in America is the indifference and complacency about important issues that results from much of the population being perpetually hypnotized by conspicuous consumption, social media, entertainment, and self-medication. Using sedation and escapism for relief from the rat race might make us less aware (blissfully ignorant) but also less empowered to improve our role within the rat race\u2026 a vicious cycle of cause and effect.\u201d<\/div>\n
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However, something very interesting about this work, that many may not notice until pointed out is the influence of another social and political activist artist.<\/div>\n
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Fairey\u2019s Sedation Pill could have been crafted 50 years ago by famed Pop artist Robert Indiana.<\/div>\n
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Using words like Stay Alert and Eyes Open as imagery to effectively convey his message, and of course the title of the work \u201cIt takes the sedation of millions to hold us back\u201d. Fairey, creatively taking a page from Indiana\u2019s playbook, not only uses words, but also positions them along side of geometric forms and shapes, and effective fonts to emphasize not only the word but its connotations.<\/div>\n
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Indiana brilliantly understood that words would not be enough. He had to pair them with form, shape, color, and draw the viewer in by making the work visually optical, and kinetic. Shepard Fairey did all this with Sedation Pill.<\/div>\n
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If the influence of Robert Indiana is not obvious to the viewer just on the merits of the work itself, well then Fairey let us know by adding the number 5 at the top right and bottom left of the work.<\/div>\n
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In 1963, Indiana paintied \u201cThe Figure 5\u201d, owned by the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington D.C.<\/div>\n
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Shepard Fairey, Sedation Pill HPM (detail)<\/div>\n
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Robert Indiana, The Figure 5<\/div>\n
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\u201cI had seen a large retrospective of Demuth\u2019s work and was mightily impressed. So I got off on that subject. I used the Demuth painting as a theme and, not liking to do those kinds of things, I decided to make the painting an homage to Demuth because I\u2019m very fond of his work. There were five paintings all related to that particular theme, and those words simply came from earlier works. Some of my first word paintings were, for instance, just \u201cEAT\u201d \u201cDIE\u201d. And \u201cEAT\u201d \u201cDIE\u201d of course stem from the fact that the last word that my mother said before she died was \u201cEat.\u201d But it relates to other aspects of the American scene. To complement \u201cEAT\u201d \u201cDIE\u201d\u2013 one really couldn\u2019t go on doing that forever \u2013 I thought of the supplementary idea of \u201cHUG\u201d \u201cERR.\u201d \u201cHUG\u201d was a family word for giving affection and so forth, and so it began to suggest covering some of the more formal aspects of life \u2014 existence and love and survival and sin and what have you.\u201d \u2014 Robert Indiana<\/div>\n
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Sedation Pill HPM is a Hand Painted Multiple. This means that the entire paper that the work is printed on is all made of collaged elements of newspaper, torn stenciled patterns on paper, that Fairey is so well known for. Once the collaged paper is created, the image is then silkscreened on top of the paper. The torn elements of paper create a raw or rough look, as if this work was pasted on a wall on top of other previous works that had been there and have a worn or weathered look. After the silkscreen is placed on top Fairey then goes back and hand paints on top of the silkscreen, and margins.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Shepard Fairey Sedation Pill HPM 2013 HPM (hand-painted multiple), screenprint and mixed media collage on paper 40 x 30 in. Edition of 10 Pencil signed and numbered About the work: IT TAKES THE SEDATION OF MILLIONS TO HOLD US BACK … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[291,16,79,14,234,84,25,248,8,83,9,602,15,102,73,47,56,601,28,12,13,88,69,222,17,89],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1123,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1119\/revisions\/1123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}