OUIL401- Studio Brief 1- Artist Analysis

Shephard Fairey is arguably best know for the now widely love 'obey' posters, so the fact that he created a poster for a political figure in America could be seen as being a little bit hypocritical? The reason of his creation of the 'OBEY' poster and figure, to me see like it was almost protesting against political domination, and seemed to commentt that we are dictated to 'obey' by a higher power. Now the fact that he created an almost promotional material for a politition seemed a bit counter intuitive.



However, the 'HOPE' image, is now arguably one of the most influential pieces of art within the past 10 years, and I would argue it definitely had a lot of positive feelings generated for Obama. A lot of people seemed to pick up on the hypocrisy of Shephard, and he got a lot of stick for it, which is probably why he reworked the image later on. Very poor play Shephard.

OUIL401- Studio Brief 1- The changing face of protest art

Whilst researching for this module, I became intregued as to how protest art has changed over time. What I found most interesting is that it seems protest has become much less personal. In recent times, protest art doesn't seem to be something that people hold on the picket line anymore; now it seems to be bites of information left by individuals to represent an idea, which is then capitalised on by the masses.



This image was taken around the time of the war in Vietnam. Lots of people stood out in protest, as individuals, but as one mass and one idea.



Now though, this seems to be the standard for protest art. Even simply googling the words 'protest art' brings up a wall of Banksy (or Banksy wannabes) and their messages. I apreciate that the ideas portrayed in these images is probably shared by many, but it just seems very impersonal and faceless.

Maybe this is something I could address in my essay in future. Im pretty sure referencing Bernay's Propaganda in the 60s and comparing it to a more recent publication could give a cool comparison between the two times.