Why Does Fairey's Work Matter?

Want to impress your significant other while visiting the murals? To really understand why the art world is in love with Shepard Fairey, you’ll need to know a bit of art history. Don’t worry, you don’t need to know this stuff to think the murals are awesome, but mentioning this stuff will score you some significant points. And, you might even like the murals even more in the process.

Modernism

So, da Vinci, Michelangelo, Van Gogh, Monet and all those guys did their thing. Then came the twentieth century. A bunch of art critics were obsessed with this idea of “Modernism”. You don’t need to know all the details, but here’s the gist:

1. The most important thing to know is that they believed in Progress, the idea that things and humanity are getting better.
2. They were convinced that science and technology are making the world a better place.
3. They believed that our rational minds are the most important thing on the planet. More important than nature, emotion, love, spirituality and religion.
4. They also believed that western industrial culture is, without a doubt, better in all its aspects than any other culture.

Pretty arrogant, huh? So, if objective truth is more important that emotion, then imagine what kind of art that was produced. A lot of flat stuff like Mondrian's Composition with Yellow, Blue, and Red. Accordingly, art was only supposed to be:

1. In a gallery, away from the everyday riff-raff.
2. About the color and shapes, not about the people, places or things represented. In fact, Modern artists were encouraged to stop drawing people, places or things. They even stopped trying to create a sense of depth. Instead, flat colors and shapes on the canvas were encouraged. The artist themselves didn’t matter, and neither did how they created their work.
3. “Outside of history” in the sense that art should make no commentary on history, politics or pop culture.

Postmodernism

After the horrors of World War II, artist began to realize that the idea of progress might be a sham. If a modern, western industrial country like Germany could commit so many horrible acts and use technology in such terrible ways, maybe the Modern ideals were a lie.

Fast forward to today. A slew of artists since WWII have torn down each of the ideas that make up Modernism. Most art critics call this movement Postmodernism. Most Postmodern art is conceptual, isn’t very accessible to folks who aren’t art critics and seems to be hell-bent on critiquing Modernism.

Shepard Fairey, however, seems to be an artist who is trying to move beyond merely reacting against Modernism and, instead, create something new, meaningful and transforming. Consider these facts:

1. Fairey’s work originates not in a gallery, but on the street. He doesn’t want to engage the art critics, he wants to engage everyday, normal people. Artistically, his work is more like the Sex Pistols than Michelangelo.
2. Fairey’s work is skeptical of our culture, and certainly doesn’t think ours is any better than anyone else’s. Instead, he celebrates what we all have in common: emotion, love and spirituality.
3. Fairey’s work focuses on people and ideas, not flat colors and shapes. When on the street, his work is plastered on a variety of surfaces, including other posters. In the gallery, you’ll see that his work is built up over a collage of background. The point is his work has texture, depth and the inconsistencies that come from spray painted images.
4. Fairey’s work is both about his process as well as the content of his work. It’s hard not to wonder how 40’ murals appear overnight or imagine him balanced precariously off a rickety ladder posting his work up!
5. Fairey’s work is constantly making commentary on what’s happening today.

If you visit the CAC and wander through the last twenty years of his work, you will see a story emerge: a punk rock kid pulling a prank is inspired and his graffiti is transformed into art. It is art that is accessible to all people. It is art that cannot be bound within the confines of the museum or gallery. It is art that skillfully challenges our contemporary condition, but does so in a way that is humorous and within reach to all viewers, not in a preachy or academic way.

As greedy corporations and their sprawling advertising campaigns dominate our landscape, work that undermines those campaigns with wit and nerve are important. Shepard Fairey challenges us to question how we obey advertising and our culture. He does so armed with little more than a handful of stickers, a can of spray paint, posters, wheat paste and gumption. We see that his work has emerged as a powerful force in the art world and has invaded popular culture.