Street artist Shepard Fairey currently has a retrospective of his 20 year carreer at the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati. The retrospective has 2 parts, one at the CAC itself and the other with street murals in various locations around town. Although not a household name, he has propelled himself into the main stream with his most famous work to date, the “Hope” poster of President Barack Obama. Interestingly, this image has sparked legal issues concerning Shepard’s appropriation of photographer Mannie Garcia’s image of President Obama for the poster, in fact Shepard Fairey admitted to trying to deceive the Court by destroying evidence that he had used the photograph. The street murals around town seem to be best described as commercial grafitti focusing on typical political and social “hotbutton” issues. One mural even features famed communist and socialist Angela Davis. Interestingly the mural with Angela is on Main St, could it be a subtle reference to the Rolling Stones album “Exile on Main Street” featuring a song in support of Angela Davis titled “Sweet Black Angel“? Another mural features Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma. Never the less they are visually interesting enough to show them in the environmental context in which they are placed. Perhaps you could say that I appropriated Mr. Fairey’s work into mine.
