[Marxism] General Strike Comics: revolutionary art history, Obey Plagarist Shepard Fairey a Critique by Artist Mark Vallen

[Christopher Hutchinson <christopher.hutch@xxxxxxxxx>]

Since I'm having issues loading images on to General Strike I am posting
this interesting bit of writing on the art work of self-proclaimed
"guerrilla street artist" Shepard Fairey.  Fairey recently created the
iconic "HOPE" poster for the Obama campaign.  Little did many folks realize
how deep his betrayal of the working class runs.  Obama aside, Mark Vallen,
who wrote the following article clearly documents how Fairey absconds with
images from art history and working class posters to print on clothing and
make huge profits.
"Fairey has developed a successful career through expropriating and
recontextualizing the artworks of others, which in and of itself does not
make for bad art. Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein based his paintings on the
world of American comic strips and advertising imagery, but one was always
aware that Lichtenstein was taking his images from comic books; that was
after all the point, to examine the blasé and artificial in modern American
commercial culture. When Lichtenstein painted Look Mickey, a 1961 oil on
canvas portrait of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, everyone was cognizant of
the artist's source material - they were in on the joke. By contrast, Fairey
simply filches artworks and hopes that no one notices - the joke is on you."

http://www.generalstrikecomics.com/2009/02/05/obey-plagiarist-shepard-fairey-a-critique-by-artist-mark-vallen/

keep well,

christopher
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