Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

  • theawesomerobot

    To the commenters above – the difference between this guy and street art? A TON of money. He’s everything but a graffiti artist #14.

    Other artists do this all the time? Yeah, like Todd Goldman (http://www.miketyndall.com/todd_goldman/) who is now generally known as one of the biggest hack’s out there.

    You can argue that Banksy makes money off of his art, but his work is far more original than Fairey’s, who often just directly copies the image and slaps “Obey” on it.

    Sure mix-ups and mash-ups happen all the time, but they don’t exist soley to create money as much of Fairey’s work does.

    Oh, and Fairey actually has the nerve to copyright his work and has pursued/threatend people who have done the same exact thing that he has done in the past. He’s even given threats to parody artists.

    Also, @#13 – he takes work without even knowing where it came from (or even bothering to look) – he typically doesn’t even *credit* the original.

    Thus why he ended up unknowlingly selling shirts with an SS skull on them (sold in walmart of all places). He “referenced” a biker logo, which “referenced” the SS insignia. Just so happens that the images “referenced” look exactly the same.

    I’d be a lot less critical if Fairey used a bit more tact, the man is just entirely hypocrticial and unethical. I’m sorry, but I just hate to see him get so much news coverage despite all this. I suppose that’s just how the world works.

  • buddy66

    Luck:

    1. Bush’s great fuck-ups.

    2. Sarah Palin.

    3. Wall Street.

    Dangerous:

    When a cult of personality grows around a charismatic national leader, it spells trouble in the best of times. This is the worst of times, and Afghanistan/Pakistan beckons…

    I have not forgotten how close JFK came to blowing up the world out of hubris and inexperience.

    Of course I wish Obama luck, but I’m scared.

  • buddy66

    It’s just a simple 4-color run, either silk-screened or made to look that way. I don’t see the socialist realism aspect of it; just a Warhol-inspired picture done in a faux 1940′s style. It caught on, fortunately for the artist, and lends itself nicely to the growing cult of personality around this most fortunate and dangerous man.

  • Private Ed

    Sigh. I feel this discussion comes up every year. I agree with THEAWESOMEROBOT in that this is how the art world works. I’m kind of indifferent about image “remixing” at this point in my art-viewing life and I’ll leave fighting-the-good-fight against it up to him/her. I’m actually starting to come around to it.

    I’m not condoning Fairey but I’m not condemning him either.

    Of course the difference is money, would we care if some joe schmo were lifting lesser known work? Doubtful.

    Would his images change if Fairey just came out and said “hey, here’s were I got this shit.” Probably not.

    Good artists steal. Great artists cover their tracks. The cover-up isn’t denying the process but being more honest with where your products are coming from.

    Some of the images Fairey’s made are going to stand on their own and thus validate his other work.

  • theawesomerobot

    I’d be ok with it if he

    A. Credited his sources (he’ll only do so if confronted)

    B. Wasn’t producing work soley for profit.

    He’s not trying to convey a message (like many street artists) and it’d be a strech to say that he’s trying to weaken the strength of propeganda by depurposing it (as some say). As I said, the majority of his work consists of copying something, adding “Obey” to it, and then selling it. It’s completely shameless.

    “The cover-up isn’t denying the process but being more honest with where your products are coming from.Some of the images Fairey’s made are going to stand on their own and thus validate his other work.”

    What? I think I’m missing something there. I understand this is how the world often works, but stealing is stealing, covered up or not.

    Maybe I’m being *too* critical, and I’ll be the first to admit it – but this guy’s attitutde towards it really grinds my gears.

    I honestly don’t feel as though he deserves any respect that he gets. I guess that’s just how popularity works.

    I apologize for the mild comment hijacking here – but I’ve said all I’ve wanted to say about Fairey.

  • Anonymous
  • Thomas Semesky

    The big bad AP picking on the poor lonely artist. I suspect that most of those defending Fairey are probably Obama supporters. They don’t look at it as an infringment of a photograph, but more as an attack on their messiah! But then again Obama did say that we need to, “redistribute the wealth”!

  • Takuan

    if you make derivative art, and kill the original artist and all who knew him,and destroy all copies,is your art then original? (just checking first, it looks like a hell of a lot of work)

  • 13strong

    I see what you’re saying, but your points don’t really suggest Obama is “fortunate”, do they?

    What you’re saying is that a charismatic yet inexperienced leader, upon whom everyone has pinned their hopes, has been elected due to national desperation and a combination of a scarcity of viable alternatives and a massive lowering of expectations on a national scale.

    If you’re right, then Obama is in for a rough, ROUGH time. Not so fortunate, then.

    I don’t personally know what to expect, but I have SOME hope in the form of Obama’s administration, and the fact that, unlike Tony Blair, he doesn’t seem to be a megalomaniacal control freak, or like Bush, a stubborn, intolerant ignoramus. He seems willing to listen to those in the know, and though his administration reflects some strange choices, it also represents a potentially brilliant combination of fresh, innovative thinkers, seasoned political veterans and bi-partisan strategising.

    As a friend of mine said today, in the face of my pessimism – “Can’t we just enjoy the moment??”

    Which seems fair enough. Let’s wait and see what happens. It can’t be worse than Bush being in power for another 4 years.

  • Anonymous

    The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

    Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?

    One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits. All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full: unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again. All things are full of labor; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

    The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

    Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us. There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.

  • theawesomerobot

    Just an FYI, Fairey is generally regarded as a thief amongst many artists. (Though the Obama posters are some of his most original work)

    http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Obey/index.htm

  • Piers W

    “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.” T. S. Eliot

    Stolen by Lionel Trilling as “Immature artists imitate; mature artists steal”

  • silly bobs

    would love to see fairey’s “reference” libary.
    Bet he locks all the books he rips from locked tight incase someone thumbs through and “hey dude this looks just like your…..”

    nice article link btw @11

  • tompolley

    I second Xeni’s final thought: I really, really hope to see progress. I don’t think it’s a guarantee, though, and I think that we all have to take responsibility to ensure that it happens.

    I’m a fervent Obama supporter, but I don’t think that today is the day that we all walk into the sunset holding hands. Today is the beginning of the process, not the end.

    I am confident that Obama will be competent; I think he’ll be good; and I hope he’ll be great. But there is simply no room to place our future in his hands and say, “okay, get that fixed for me — I’ll pick it up in a couple of years.” We all gotta work our asses off. Recycle. Write letters. Organize. Be active.

    Let’s all help the guy out. He’s gonna need it. And so are we.

  • Steven Stwalley

    As charismatic as Obama is (and as loathsome as his competition was), I have sometimes wondered if he would have won without the aid of that iconic one word poster. It is an amazingly effective piece of political propaganda, regardless.

  • Tavie

    Damn, Fairey’s cute.

  • Chris Tucker

    It’s amusing reading the comments on the original Boing Boing article on the poster.

    I suppose the only downside to the poster will be the 2012 GOP candidates with their own, badly done Fairey knockoffs, in very bright, primary RED WHITE AND BLUE!

    Which, of course, will define epic fail.

  • 13strong

    I have my doubts about the Obama administration. I worry that the man is a blank slate; a sponge for everyone’s individual hopes and dreams for the US, no matter how clearly those hopes and dreams are actually articulated.

    Posters like this, for me, kind of represent that. It’s a beautiful poster, and Fairey is a very talented guy (check out his New World Odor work in London’s Brick Lane: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/112/285837429_47551a788b.jpg), but the socialist-style design is actually more appropriate for Obama’s cult of personality than for his apparently “socialist” policies.

    Like Xeni, I hope he does well. I hope he delivers real change and, more importantly, justice, both in the US and abroad. His staff picks have been mostly optimistic, but also somewhat baffling or depressing. And I don’t see his inauguration bringing great change to the Israel/Palestine conflict.

    Obama’s captured a lot of people’s hopes and dreams, rightly or wrongly. I just hope that’s justified, and that he will be more Roosevelt than Blair.

  • Talia

    yeah he would have won without it. its a nice image, but his message, and the movement he built, the momentum that m ovement built up, was what led to his victory.

  • Ugly Canuck

    Hmmm. That poster’s style would IMO be better described as American Socialist Realism, very much a WPA ‘public art’ style, distinguishable from both the styles of Soviet Socialist Realism and Latin Socialist Realism.
    Too be more accurate, that poster is a parody of the American Socialist Realism style, which died out in the Forties. At least, that style did.
    What the current style of Socialist Realism may look like, I don’t know. All I’ve seen purporting to be such, have been in actuality parodies.
    I suspect that we are presently in an age of Surrealism & Absurdism, and that all other styles have been subsumed, in the amorphousness of that dreamy culture. The original Surrealists wished the world to be more dream-like; they appear to have gotten their wish.
    American art needs more imagination. Parody is simply not up to the job.

  • franko

    @11 –

    i understand the point of the article, and nobody (not even fairey, from what i have seen) disputes that he uses images from other sources in art and history… so, what’s the problem here? isn’t this what his “remixing” as an artist is all about? taking a familiar or half-familiar image and applying it to a contemporary perspective?

  • 13strong

    @ #7: BUDDY66

    “this most fortunate and dangerous man”

    Statements like that, launched out with a shrug of the shoulder but no explanation of they’re meaning, kind of annoy me. I wouldn’t mind if it was self-explanatory, but it doesn’t even make much sense.

    In what way is he fortunate? Do you mean he’s generally fortunate, or that he’s particularly fortunate to be elected US President? Why is he any more fortunate than any other president?

    And dangerous? In what way?

    It seems a strange thing to say that he’s both fortunate AND dangerous. Perhaps you’re claiming, pretty nonsensically, that he’s too inexperienced to be president, and therefore he’s fortunate to have been elected (and to have followed on the heels of such a disastrous prez). If he is too inexperienced, then he’s hardly fortunate to have become president at such a time of economic, environmental and diplomatic crisis.

    He’s either fortunate or dangerous. Not both. Not that either option is particularly desirable.

  • Private Ed

    whoa, whoa, whoa… you mean that graffiti artists (folks who “bomb” the streets with their work) lack the integrity to cite their sources?

    Sounds like Fairey’s got it figured out. Other artists do this all the time.