{"id":511,"date":"2015-11-23T22:58:24","date_gmt":"2015-11-23T22:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/?p=511"},"modified":"2015-11-24T17:31:58","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T17:31:58","slug":"wow-work-of-the-week-shepard-fairey-obey-04-wage-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wow\/wow-work-of-the-week-shepard-fairey-obey-04-wage-peace","title":{"rendered":"WOW! \u2013 Work Of the Week \u2013 Shepard Fairey “Obey ’04 (Wage Peace)”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Retro<\/a><\/p>\n

Shepard Fairey <\/span><\/strong>aka<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>OBEY<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

OBEY ’04 (Wage Peace)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

2006<\/span><\/p>\n

Screenprint<\/span><\/p>\n

42 x 30 in.<\/span><\/p>\n

Edition of 89<\/span><\/p>\n

Pencil signed and numbered<\/span><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

ABOUT THIS WORK:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Shepard Fairey’s background is rooted in American skate and punk rock culture, with\u00a0<\/span>his work born out of a combination of a graffiti aesthetic and Pop art sensibilities. Straddling the divide between the fine art world and the street art world, Fairey\u2014despite his massive popularity\u2014has had to wait to be accepted by the more traditional art world. His higher profile has also, in turn, gotten him into some serious problems with law enforcement (he recently faced felony charges in Detroit, despite eighteen prior arrests for illegal tagging). Fairey said of this conflict: “To some people street art is vandalism, to others it’s gentrification, and either of those could be considered more legit than the other depending on your perspective<\/i>“.<\/span><\/p>\n

His artwork stands out in both the street and in a gallery setting. Although he is still viewed primarily as a street artist despite his indisputable commercial success. Fairey’s\u00a0<\/span>use of powerful, accessible images and messages display an influence from early advertising, alternative culture, and Pop artists like Andy Warhol. This combination of clear messaging and graphic compositions gives his work a broad appeal that speaks to a wide cross section of society. \u201cStreet art has to stand out from the static, and contend\u00a0<\/i><\/span>with the metabolism of the city<\/i>“. He evokes communist propaganda, Barbara Kruger style advertorials and Jasper Johns subversion.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fairey’s work also has a strong political component. He was already well known for his OBEY Andre the Giant tags and stickers before he created the image Obama Hope in 2008, a block-colored portrait of the presidential hopeful Barack Obama. The image, now world-famous, was subsequently adopted as the official presidential campaign image and became probably his most famous image. In addition, he also created a poster in support of Ai Weiwei’s\u2014now successful\u2014campaign to regain his passport in 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n

Early in his career, during the OBEY sticker campaign that made him famous, Fairey seriously questioned the nature of his imagery, firmly establishing himself as an outspoken counter-culture figure, often addressing issues of war, human rights, ecology,\u00a0<\/span>and politics.<\/span><\/p>\n

His art can be explained as an experiment in Phenomenology. Heidegger describes Phenomenology as \u201cthe process of letting things manifest themselves.\u201d Phenomenology attempts to enable people to see clearly something that is right before their eyes but\u00a0<\/span>obscured; things that are so taken for granted that they are muted by abstract observation. Because people are not used to seeing advertisements or propaganda for which the product or motive is not obvious, frequent and novel encounters with this art provoke thought and possible frustration, nevertheless revitalizing the viewer\u2019s perception and attention to detail.<\/span><\/p>\n

A perfect example of this is the work entitled Obey ’04, from the Retro Series. The silhouette of the soldier is a strong graphic form against the red background. Here we can see all the typical elements that characterize Fairey’s art: red, beige and black colors, modern and current subjects and the predominant presence of the graphic element.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also present is the image Fairey became known for, the Andre The Giant face. This is represented by the soldier holding up this iconic image. We also see it in that sort of mandala shaped like a star in the upper right, a true symbol of the artist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fairey, who is definitely a pacifist, creates work that speak of peace and war, conveying his concern with politics.Here we can see the words \u201cwage peace\u201d instead of the typical \u201cwage war\u201d, and a flower inside the rifle instead of bullets. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Obey ’04 from the Retro Series was created to commemorate the 20 year anniversary of the artwork of OBEY. The series was first released for the opening of Shepard’s 20 years Retrospective at the ICA Boston.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shepard Fairey aka\u00a0OBEY OBEY ’04 (Wage Peace) 2006 Screenprint 42 x 30 in. Edition of 89 Pencil signed and numbered — ABOUT THIS WORK: Shepard Fairey’s background is rooted in American skate and punk rock culture, with\u00a0his work born out … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[236,16,79,14,234,21,8,237,29,28,235,12,13,85,17],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511"}],"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=511"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":517,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511\/revisions\/517"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsfineart.com\/gallery-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}