Shepard Fairey (ART)+ the origins of the OBEY campaign

I first became aware of Shepard Fairey's work...when traveling through London, England a few years back.I got off the train at the "Angel" stop off the Northern Line and as I was riding up the escalator I was surprised to see an "OBEY" sticker on the the wall tiles...surprised mostly because I'd only been in London a few hours and yet the image seemed familiar to me. Shortly thereafter I realized that I had seen it before- in the States...

I was in awe: An artist had bridged the international gap: not through fame or fortune but through stickers! The campaign was eventually described as an exercise in phenomenology (see video below), an observational exercise pertaining to the public's response to mass produced images relating unclear messages.

I was able to appreciate this angle but was mostly fascinated by the idea that Shepard Fairey had crossed international waters. The world which at times seemed so big and isolated had quickly become an overlapping and interactive structure. I can't say that Fairey's work is a fundamental inspiration in my creative process but being exposed to his work early on introduced me (at the time) and encouraged me afterwards to think big. Not to think flashy or crazy, but to recognize and exploit the possibilities of simple visual communication not only on a local or immediate level but on an international scale.

Check out the official "OBEY" campaign website here.

Check out this interview with Shepard Fairey in which he describes the process in the origin and evolution of the "OBEY" campaign...




For more info on Shephard Fairey and the Obey Campaign on wikipedia, click here.