Shepard Fairey

This past weekend I went to the ICA to view the Shepard Fairey exhibit. I never realized how much of an influence he has had on many people from political views to musicians to average everyday people. While viewing the exhibit I was very interested in how he made the art by using newspapers as his canvas and either stenciling or silk screening over images.

The messages he shows through his images are sometimes very radical if you stand there and just look at them. He depicts how in war there is this idea of hope, and the good things versus the bad. He uses this image of roses in guns which we see back in the 60s to show a kind of protest and how we have that option to take arms and fight or to try and create some kind of peace.

Othe interesting images that were in the exhibit were those of famous figures through out history. Some examples were of TuPac, Malcom X, Martin Luther King Jr., memebers of the band the Sex Pistols and more. His reason for creating these images was because he feels as though sometimes we take them for granted and do not completely give them the credit that they deserved and the accomplishments they have helped us to strive for. You can tell how much the punk movement played on him through the ways is which he talks about rising up against authority and his many different images of the Sex Pistols band members.

This exhibit was very interesting, before coming to it I knew very little about what his art was about other than he uses the image of Andre the Giant as propaganda and "obey". Now I better understand just what kind of message he is trying to depict.