Shepard Fairey: "Playing With Art & Commerce"

On November 11, 2009, Shepard Fairey was interviewed by Sarah Banet-Weiser who is an Associate Professor at the School of Communication at USC Anneberg and the department of American Studies and Ethnicity. During her introduction, she says that "his work challenges us to figure out it's meanings, refuses to sit still and disrupts boundaries between art, politics and consumer culture".


While he was attending the Rhode Island School of Design, in his freshman year, he worked at a skateboard shop named Watershed. There was a group of people that worked there that formed a team called Team Shed. Since Shepard Fairey was running the shop, he was team captain. They were making paper stencils to use for the designs on the shirts. A friend, while staying over with him one night, asked him how to make the stencils. His friend did not know what he wanted to use for the stencil, so he suggested an ad for wrestling that he just happened to see. He finished it because his friend did not want to. The whole thing was an inside joke that launched him into an early cult status with his Andre the Giant "OBEY" series.

When I watched Ironman 2 in the theater, I did not notice the piece of art that Robert Downy, Jr.'s character was taking down from the wall. After purchasing a copy of my own, my family and I were watching it and I noticed how similar it looked to Shepard Fairey's piece of art he made for Pres. Obama during his presidential campaign. I Googled "Ironman 2 Shepard Fairey" and found out that I was right. I also found out that it upset some people that he did that. I thought it was cool that the ones that made the Ironman 2 movie thought to ask him to make a poster in his style for the movie. I also thought it was cool that I had learned about Shepard Fairey and his graphic artwork in my graphic design class and was able to remember his name.

After checking out his website, I found out that he has created a lot of very detailed pieces and a wide variety of pieces. I also found out that what Sarah Banet-Weiser states in the video is true, "his art refuses to be categorized".