Sheppard Fairey

I have been thinking for a while how can you make an artwork that recalls speaks to people. I have ventured into looking at the world of abstract and non-representivism but I don’t feel that this is right for me.

Upon taking my mother around our local art gallery I realised that pieces that can be described in this way are generally overlooked by the majority of people. I personally feel that this is wrong but in order to speak to people you need to be able to capture something iconic in a way that will appeal to them.

The impressionists were shunned in their day for their work, but now are overwhelmingly held up as masters. I believe that through time this will be the same for artists such as Cy Twombly and Rothko, who are appreciated today massively but seemingly to a select group with an extended appreciation for art. This is why when reading Computer Arts April 2011 I was gripped by an article about a graphic designer Sheppard Fairey.

Obama has been immortalised. His inauguration speech has been flagged as one of the most famous speeches and attributed to the same effect as those of nelson Mandela and Churchill. He is immortalised in this image, simply called “Hope”. The wise face is staring into the distance but at a slight proud angle. The simplicity mirrors that of a newspaper and is tinted with the patriotic colours of the American flag to create a sense of belonging and righteousness.

Sheppard Fairy was incredibly daring with his piece because of the legal problems with its production. The piece is bassed on a photography taken in April 2006 by Mannie Garcia while on assignment for the Associated Press (AP), which believs they deserve credit and compensation for the work. However, Garcia believes that he personally owns the copyright for the photo, and has said, "If you put all the legal stuff away, I’m so proud of the photograph and that Fairey did what he did artistically with it, and the effect it's had." In February 2009, Fairey filed a federal lawsuit against the Associated Press, seeking a declaratory judgment that his use of the AP photograph was protected by the fair use doctrine and so did not infringe their copyright. In October 2009 Shepard Fairey admitted to trying to deceive the Court by destroying evidence that he had used the photograph alleged by the AP. His lawyers announced they were no longer representing himand In May 2010, a judge urged Fairey to settle. There are questions as to the copyright of his work to which his reply is:

“My feeling about copyright is important but that it should apply to verbatim reproductions, bootlegs, exact identical copies, not transformative pieces... because long before copyright law was as powerful as it is today, artists, musicians, speech writers, authors were making new works inspired by older works but somehow updated conversation and had a new unique value... And that is the danger is that people will not make that kind of work for fear of being sewed”.

I feel that due to the origional artis feeling that that the work is lawfull and the stark differences between the two both in media and effect that Fairy should not be persecuted. I feel the line is crossed when those copy works claiming that they are the creator of the indovidual piece. However I do not feel should be condemned for this case. The work has striking differences and is intended for a different audience. The three renaissance painters Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael were constantly creating new and supposedly ‘improved’ versions of each other’s work. But this all boils down to the never ending question of what is art.

I believe that Sheppard Fairy’s work deserves individual appreciation. I feel that the word of copyright is, in some cases, spinning out of control. That to stand to create something that really speaks to the popular you must embody what they are looking for. But the creation that embodies this “truer than trueness” and this new concept of a populace would be an interesting ally to explore.

The creation of something like the work of Gerhard Richter is focused on a personal experience; Rothko strikes similarities but seemed to want to portray his work in a specific way. He rejected contracts that were worth thousands of dollars because the environment wasn’t worthy of the message his artwork was trying to portray. I thought here I should point out I’m not criticising anyone, in fact I’m just building on a collective understanding of art. I think in reality the only difference between a graphic designer and a fine artist is the purpose. Both fundamentally employ creativity and try to project themselves into their work by going on creative journeys and discovering their own style. It wouldn’t surprise me if in 100 years time it is large graphic images that take up the majority of wall space in our galleries; but once again this is no criticism. The tides of art are constantly changing through external innovation and change. Art will never remain a stationary concept and I feel that one of the reason the question “what is art anyway?” is so perplexing is because it’s a concept that is constantly changing.

I’m always open for debate on these things, but that’s my personal belief anyway.