The Problem with Shepard Fairey

February 5 2009, 6:55am

Shepard Fairey’s much hyped Institute for Contemporary Arts show, “Supply and Demand”, probably never would have happened without the new president. But that famous image fails as anything more than a reminder. It is not that it borrows so obviously from communist propaganda design, but because it doesn’t transcend its source of inspiration. There is nothing about it to communicate that this is about 2008, and there’s an election in America, a country deeply fearful, frustrated, and cynical. It is as it looks: a Dear Leader-like swoon….which could work only if you interpret it at it as a self-mocking, self-aware rub at “drinking the Obama kool-aid.” However, the poster came out early in the primaries, before thousands of people stood in queues to hear him speak. Fairey himself admits the famous Che Guevara image was a major source of inspiration. True, it is an inspired choice of image of Obama. He is captured exactly as we like to think of him: looking caring, but just a bit distant and analytical. That is precisely why people who really like Obama tend to really like Shepard Fairey’s Obama poster. Now that the right person for the job ended up the White House, it’s worth pointing out Tony Puryear’s poster of Hillary Clinton was a hell of a lot better:

Puryear is also taking inspiration from propaganda posters, but by using a photograph, rather than illustration, it moves beyond its source. It mocks the Communist propaganda that was the inspiration. You can see the lines on Clinton’s face, her eyelids are dropped a lit, she looks relaxed. She radiates warmth as much as power and intellect. She’s a human being, not an icon. There is a twist to the Clinton image. But with Shepard Fairey, what you see is what you get. Before the Boston show opened, Fairey came to town to wheatpaste images, mostly around Harvard Square. The first one I noticed, was outside the Gap. At first glance, I thought the Gap commissioned it. It’s next to the door and looks “urban” but in a way that wouldn’t scare the suburbanites off from buying socks and down jackets. It is intricate, but so totally inoffensive, it is virtually indistinguishable from contemporary jeans advertising. Positioned by a store front, it only looks like an extension of the store.

Image of Fairey in front of the Gap from ICA’s Flickr What’s the point of street art that only encourages more foot traffic at the Gap? Was the Saks campaign pro bono too? I don’t have a problem with artists doing commercial work to pay the bills, but if and when you do work for free, why not make something that doesn’t look like the Gap commissioned you to do it? And before someone comments that the wheatpaste is all about the juxtaposition and its placement in the city and the street — hold on. It communicates nothing in the context of this space. For the non-Cantabrigians: Harvard Square is Boston’s equivalency of Santa Monica. Nor is it more of the They Live-inspired non-advertising like the Andre the Giant stuff.It’s a poster in front of a Gap that looks like the Gap paid him a few grand to put up. If you aren’t easily frustrated by visually interesting things which can only be considered at surface level, you may enjoy his ICA show. Otherwise you’ll likely get annoyed by many parts of it. An entire room is filled with about 40 screen printed images of Joe Strummer, Tupac, Lou Reed, Ian MacKaye, even, good lord, Henry fucking Rollins. As the ICA explains, “Fairey’s graphic style, which takes celebrity portraits and transforms them into iconic cool, is a perfect fit for the music industry.” There’s nothing to the images. The design is nothing above what you’d see in Spin magazine. Is it an attempted visualization of the favorite “music” section in Fairey’s Myspace profile? Or is he really this low concept? Another room has as a quote, “I use figures in my work who I feel are used and abused as symbols, but without telling the viewer how to feel about them.” And to be honest, the image of Angela Davis is just that. He illustrates her from a unique angle. It’s a dramatic image, but, while I wrote down in my notebook to praise it, I now can hardly remember what it looks like or why I liked it in the first place. Nor can I whole-heartedly recommend my favorite piece in the show — Commanda. It’s an image of a veiled ambiguously Asian/Persian woman holding a spraycan furtively, with the cap facing forward about to be pressed. It’s nice. It’s clever. It’s kinda like something Banksy would do but with lots of pretty embellishments. As a political street artist, it’s hard not to compare him with Banksy. But Banksy couldn’t possibly create work as moving as he does without staying well-informed of politics. Fairey’s work makes you wonder if he even quite knows what’s going on in the Middle East or what Guantánamo Bay even is. What Fairey communicates about politics is apathy and a vague directionless feeling of dissent. The ornate details that set him apart may add prettiness but no depth to his work. I was tempted to title this post “Rubylith with out a cause,” because that seems very much like a Shepard Fairey pun. Like his fake currency that says says “No Cents” on it. Or the title of the show: “Supply and Demand.” Is this all a commentary on the recession/international economics/ geopolitical risk? Naw, man. A gallery assistant played up Fairey’s attention to detail, pointing to how precisely the rubyliths were carved with an X-acto. And that’s about right, Fairey does seem to be a perfectionist. But a workhorse isn’t always a great visionary. And his art mostly deals with politics, the limits to his vision are made obvious. You can find art right down the hall that combines beauty, ferocious attention to detail, and a clear, eloquent, unmistakable political message: Paul Chan’s 1st light (hands down the ICA’s finest piece in their permanent collection). It’s not like artists can’t be both. While a hardworker, and gifted graphic artist, Shepard Fairey’s show is verging on boring.