One of the most fascinating parts of the historic inauguration this week is watching the events unfold over Shepard Fairey's Obama poster.The "Hope" poster got Fairey's foot in the door, then it somehow landed in the friggen' Smithsonian! You just have to see these photos of the guys at the Smithsonian hanging it up with white gloves. There's also the "Progress" poster that's very similar, then he was able to create the official inauguration poster.
Keep in mind that this is a graffiti artist we're talking about. I mean, he's been arrested many times for hanging posters and vandalism. He was even arrested for hanging the "Hope" poster. The fact that he's gained this much notoriety just cracks me up. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for the guy. It's just kind of ironic.
Fairey's portrait of the Obama became one of the most common images of the campaign and landed him the title of "Icon Maker" of the year by Time magazine.
They even came up with an easy way to create your own poster, so I made one of our dog, Cooper.I've been a fan of Fairey's for a long time and went to see him talk in 2005 at OCMA. One thing stuck in my head from his presentation. He said something like "People always complain that I sold out. I didn't sell out... I bought in!"
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