fairey's posse. andy warhol had a hand in getting mao and che's images elevated to pop icon status. i'm sure those images were already popular by the time warhol got to them but by using his trademark "swatches of ugly color" technique, warhol made mao and che objects of desire -- akin to soup and hollywood starlets. at least that's what i think he was doing. i actually don't know what he was doing at all. if warhol had a non-bullshit method to his technicolor madness, i haven't learned about it yet. i think what he was doing was turning anything and everything into pop culture, so making leaders of communist revolutions (and normal everyday objects) into pop art must have made perfect sense.



there's a guy doing this today. stage left, welcome shepard fairey. who obtained fame and fortune by plastering andre the giant's image all over the place. now he runs a design company that sells simplified stenciled of people and reproduces them "on a vast array of merchandise, such as t-shirts, posters, and baseball caps." sound familiar? instead of hollywood females and campbell's, it seems like shepard fairy sticks pretty closely to hip hoppers, musicians and political figures for his portraits. the thinking behind his choice of images? the obey giant manifesto? read on.

the obey campaign can be explained as an experiement in phenomenology. the first aim of phenomenology is to reawaken a sense of wonder about one's environement. the obey campaign attempts to stimulate curiosity and bring people to question both the campaign and their relationship with their surroundings. because people are not used to seeing advertisements or propaganda for which the motive is not obvious, frequent and novel encounters with obey propaganda provoke thought and possible frustration, nevertheless revitalizing the viewer's perception and attention to detail.



the medium is the message.

my interest in obey giant is his choice of political figures, many of whom warhol already pop icon-ed. doesn't this sort of go against the "people are not used to seeing" part? we're used to seeing che and mao plastered all over the place. andre the giant was new. biggie and tupac, semi-new. nixon, sid vicious and ozzy, new. mao and lenin? not so new. getting first crack at george w bush and yassar arafat don't count as new, it's just timely. but maybe fairey includes mao and lenin's already pop-ed out icons to establish a link to the past. is shepard fairey warhol's ideological son? sure, why not.



it's also safe to say that fairey has sold out. maybe that was his intent in the first place. to get rich by distributing images that sell, with an audible but thin veneer of provokement. well, he's done a splendid job. now if he would only sell a hitler poster, that would give him back some street cred.

"according to shepard, the work is less about a specific "meaning" and more about the reaction created in the mind of the viewer. he hopes that upon viewing a giant image, people wake up to their surroundings and environment. the russian communist influence in some images reading "obey" or declaring "we want you to join the posse" is merely reverse psychology as people in society already subconsciously obey messages of consumption disseminated by corporations through advertising and billboards. by questioning the absurdity of the giant campaign, people may then be more inclined to question the messages of mass marketing."

is that what we're really doing? or are we just padding his pockets by purchasing his neato designs? i know that's what i'm doing, just buying his stuff because it's fun and cool. for example, i'm about to snatch up fairey's new magazine, swindle, exactly because his aesthetic and messages are commercial and easily accessible, even if subversion was a part of his original goal.



i wonder what i have to do to become pop icon-ed. make an actual impact on people? make a difference? have some influence? can't i just sit here and get icon-ed from my couch? wouldn't that be provoking when you're forced to ask "who is the guy on that ubiquitous poster? who is this 'obey jon' character?"