Shepard Fairey Exhibit in Mesa, Arizona

I finally made it up to Mesa today to go see the Shepard Fairey exhibit. I had a good time up there. The exhibit was not huge, but it definitely inspired me and it gave me some things to think about and engage with.

The gallery at the Mesa Contemporary Arts Center where they housed the exhibit was below ground. I was interested so see which work they chose outside to represent the exhibit. I’m not sure how I’d have chosen. I think they chose well. It looks nice.

I brought some stickers with me of course. I brought a lot of my own and a few Andre ones also, because that’s how I roll. I almost always have an Andre the Giant sticker with me if I have my own.

In at least one place in the exhibit the curators pointed out that part of the unusual process of Shepard Fairey’s campaigns is that people around the world reproduce, distribute, and install his work. The curators also made the point that the viral nature of the original Andre the Giant Has A Posse campaign predated and anticipated the way visual information would flow and disseminate in the years to come.

I like to be part of that process, that at the time I visited this exhibit had been going on for 34 years. I always make sure to have some Andre stickers made and keep them with me to remind me of what got me inspired to make stickers in the first place.

Above was the sign at the entrance to the exhibit. I reproduced it all below so it’s easier to read:

Shepard Fairey’s career started with a sticker he created in 1989 as a student at the Rhode Island School of Design. [I moved to Providence in August 1990 and immediately started seeing Andre the Giant Has A Posse stickers up everywhere. They fascinated me. People used to talk about them and wonder if it was a band name or . . . or what.] The image emerged as a crude stencil and sticker based on a pro-wrestling ad of André the Giant, to which Fairey added the phrase, “Has a Posse.” The sticker campaign began as a joke, [I know how that goes.] but quickly spread throughout Providence and the surrounding areas. The public proliferation of this viral art became an obsession for Fairey that has lasted 30 years, launched his career, and allowed him to spread his imagery and messages of empowerment worldwide.

Fairey’s art practice is fueled by a non-conformist attitude that embraces punk rock, DIY culture, skateboarding, and addresses a range of themes, from climate change to civil rights activism and mass incarceration Stylistically, his work is characterized by bold, iconic images that convey a clear message through the use of common references and text.

The exhibition “Facing the Giant: Three Decades of Dissent” features a selection of key works that highlight how Fairey has developed an intentionally accessible visual style that speaks broadly by pulling from visual history to address critical issues Many of the works depict the constant struggle against oppressors, signaling the human tendency to abuse power. Through portraiture, Fairey celebrates those who fight for change, including musicians, civil rights heroes, and overlooked leaders. Fairey’s bold, clear messages empower the public to re-examine norms and question their surroundings.

A constant presence in the urban landscape allowed Fairey to forge a diverse global following, establishing himself as a leading artist. He has influenced youth culture, fashion, identity, aesthetics, as well as help to elect a president. Fairey’s relationship with popular culture, simultaneously drawing from it conceptually and feeding it materially, has yielded an almost unrivaled impact for his art.

Shepard Fairey exhibit “Facing the Giant: Three Decades of Dissent” at the Mesa Arts Center visited January 2024

I though the exhibit might have some straight-up old school Andre stickers but the exact original sticker image was nowhere in the exhibit other than on the video that played. I know there are or were some legal issues surrounding the use of the image of the original Andre sticker. So I was not too surprised to see that the original image exactly as it appeared was not in the exhibit. But I actually was a little surprised to see images that were so obviously derived from the original sticker, like the one in the top left. Surprised, and happy also.

One of the things that resonates with me about Shepard Fairey’s work is his recycling, reimagining, and repurposing of visual elements from one work into another. I like that idea. It ties in with the language of graphic arts where components of a drawing, like in Adobe Illustrator, are referred to as “assets.” I feel like the repetition of the visual elements, the assets, adds meaning and weight to the body of work as a whole. The work comes across as very much visually “on-brand” even though the style has evolved over time. I think part of that brand consistency is the process of revisiting previously-used visual elements.

It reminds me a little of the process of sampling in music. Except it’s a little broader than that because it includes the idea of sampling original work that the same artist made previously. Like a producer sampling music they’d played and recorded previously. In any case it struck me going through the exhibit how much of a “remix” element there is in Shepard Fairey’s work, where he seems to maintain a visual awareness of where he came from even though he’s always going somewhere new.

It’s definitely an inspiring lesson to me, since with my stickers I go through a somewhat ridiculously elaborate process of drawing, digitizing, and vectorizing each asset in my drawings separately so that they can be reused and manipulated, even though the end result is only ever a drawing that looks like it was doodled by an inattentive 12-year-old — which is definitely NOT the effect Shepard Fairey’s work gives, just to be clear, that’s a very obvious point of departure between his work and mine.

The Andre sticker, which Fairey created as a student in 1989, is the cornerstone of his 30-year practice. The artist uses a cropped image of the original sticker to reflect on three decades of evolution in his work and dramatic shifts in society. Fairey’s career started with placing stickers in public space, an intentionally ambiguous statement, that over decades transformed into an overtly political, message-driven practice. Fairey inserts colors, rips and patterns reminiscent of psychedelic imagery onto and around the iconic face. The disorienting design addresses the dramatic shift from analog forms of disseminating information to the current digital bombardment of imagery and information online. Fairey ages the iconic face by covering it with colored lines and tears, signifying years of work put in by the artist to establish himself by placing work in public space, a realm loaded with competing messages and the threat of arrest. The layers and rips are also a nod to the ephemeral nature of street art. For 30 years Fairey has placed his art in the urban landscape, which has been removed by property owners, civil servants, eroded by Mother Nature, and covered by other artists.

“Obey Andre” is a testament to the commitment and ingenuity required to produce, promote, and distribute the Andre sticker for 30 years. It is also a reminder that Fairey’s sticker campaign, which started before the popularization of the Internet, predates several of the pillars of the digital age. Initially, Fairey produced the stickers himself and paid for ads in skateboard magazines to promote the campaign and give away free stickers, predating the viral dissemination of imagery online. When the campaign reached critical mass due to tremendous demand for the stickers, he could no longer afford to continue production and was forced to charge for each sticker – thereby predating the web 2.0 business model. His work also predates social media by bringing like-minded people together, in this case, rebellious youth, to place his stickers in public space across the globe. Later in making Obey stencils available for download from his website, Fairey established an open source platform dedicated to defiance.

Shepard Fairey exhibit “Facing the Giant: Three Decades of Dissent” at the Mesa Arts Center visited January 2024

Seven-feet four inches, five-hundred twenty pounds. 7’4″ 520lbs. 74520. I often get asked about the 74520 on my stickers.

The immediate success and proliferation of the Andre sticker compelled Fairey to develop strategies to expand the reach of his campaign and call attention to the original sticker in public space. However, he did want to alter the design, as a means to diversify the Andre sticker from the original black and white image. He began to print stickers with the same illustration and text but with animal patterns and colorful Op art backgrounds. His desire to create attention-getting color combinations resulted in extensive research into psychedelic posters from the late 1960s. Fairey was particularly drawn to the aggressive color combinations of posters made for the legendary San Francisco music venue The Fillmore. Up until the creation of “Andre Hendrix,” Shepard’s dedication to the Andre sticker, and its corresponding success made him wary of incorporating Andre into other works of art. Fairey’s love of psychedelic posters in general and his deep admiration for John Van Hamersveld’s 1968 image of Jimmy Hendrix allowed him to insert Andre’s face, taken from the original sticker, into a psychedelic design. This initial stylistic breakthrough would become a fundamental strategy throughout Fairey’s artistic practice. The image would become the first fine art screen print featuring Fairey’s version of the wrestler’s face.

Shepard Fairey exhibit “Facing the Giant: Three Decades of Dissent” at the Mesa Arts Center visited January 2024

The success and proliferation of the “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” sticker campaign, which resulted in national media attention, pushed Fairey to consider the value of Andre’s likeness conceptually and the potential legal hazards. At the end of 1995, with the desire to evolve toward a more open-ended image about ominous forces of control, Fairey moved away from Andre the Giant and created an ambiguous image of a face referencing Orwell’s Big Brother. The evolution of Andre produced the simplified Obey icon face, the Obey star, and the Obey red box logo, which was inspired by the work of Barbara Kruger.

These icons, along with various elements from the original sticker, became the building blocks of Shepard Fairey’s visual repertoire.

Their repeated incorporation into the artwork is to mimic this strategic mechanism used by brands and advertising. The use of arrows and exclamation marks surrounding the Obey Icon Face in “Exclamation” borrows from the Russian Constructivist, Aleksander Rodchenko.

Fairey was attracted to the idea of making an image look, “more important than it really is,” by using devices from potent propaganda.

Shepard Fairey exhibit “Facing the Giant: Three Decades of Dissent” at the Mesa Arts Center visited January 2024

The word “Obey” under the star icon comes from another critical reference, John Carpenter’s 1988 film, “They Live” in which the main character, played by another pro-wrestler, Roddy Piper, discovers subliminal messages in advertisements, controlled by an authoritarian alien elite, that push humans to obey and consume. Although campy, the film serves as a metaphor for the excesses of capitalism, systemic forms of oppression, and society’s blindness to the continuous narrative that drives consumer culture. “They Live,” inspired Fairey to use the term “Obey” as a vehicle to stimulate a critical response to messaging from authorities.

“Question Everything!”

Shepard Fairey exhibit “Facing the Giant: Three Decades of Dissent” at the Mesa Arts Center visited January 2024

This was a photo I took during the brief movie they had playing. That’s the only time I saw straight-up old Andre the Giant Has A Posse sticker images.

Above was the image that was chosen for the website that the Mesa Arts Center put up for the exhibit, for the printed materials associated with the exhibit, and for the banner they had on the building outside. This particular image was very obviously the “logo” or the “face” of the exhibit.

There was a similar message on a mural shown in the video they had running, it said something like “Make Don’t Take.” I don’t know if that was exactly it. It goes along with a theme or idea I have elsewhere on this site of produce more, consume less.

This is a minor example of what I was talking about earlier with the reuse of visual assets across different works. I don’t feel like you see this so often in fine art. In corporate graphic design and branding, sure. That’s the whole basic idea, to maintain that visual continuity. But it comes into play in a more direct way in Shepard Fairey’s fine art portfolio than it does for a lot of other artists. It’s common for a fine artist to have continuity in style and even theme, and Shepard Fairey includes along with those a graphic designer’s reuse of assets. It contributes to a body of work that is very much “on brand” and as the curators of the exhibit pointed out, visually accessible.

Thanks, Mesa! Because here I was, thinking that when there’s an exhibition of an artist, the city where the gallery is agrees with every point of view the artist has ever had. Like literally the entire city. I assumed that when an exhibit went up they made sure that literally everyone on the payroll in the entire municipality agreed exactly with every single thing the artist ever tried to get across in his or her work. And also I assumed it meant that the artist today currently agrees with every single thought he or she has ever had and expressed throughout a 30-year career. So Mesa, I’m super glad you clarified that with this cheap-looking jank-ass placard right at the entrance to the really nice-looking exhibit that people spent a lot of time and thought putting together. This really helped me process the fact that there was a drawing of a police officer with a skull face in the exhibit. Once I got to that, I was mentally able to make sense of it in the context of your really helpful sign here.

Below, I stopped at The Organic Bean Cafe in Mesa. It was nice. Very pleasant. I met my nephew Sean there for a coffee before I went on to the exhibit and he went on to his bike ride and whatever else he does. You never know. Looking for pianos. Baking bagels. Playing Mario Kart. I left some Long Dog stickers in The Organic Bean Cafe. I wonder if anyone will find them. If they happened to Google “Long Dog stickers in the Organic Bean Cafe in Mesa” well . . . there you go. Maybe they would find this. I doubt it. Maybe if they Googled “74520” they’d come across it. One never knows.

After the exhibit I went to The Salted Knot in Mesa and loved it there. It was a really nice place and a good vibe. I sat in there for a while and worked on editing the photos for this post and uploading them. I met one of the proprietors. I think they haven’t been open for very long but I’m not sure. It was very comfortable in there and everyone was very friendly. I wasn’t even going to go there, I had looked up a different taco place that I was walking to, but this place looked interesting so I went in.

I believe the drawing below depicts the proprietors. I met the woman on the left in the drawing and I saw the man. The woman told me they worked in the music industry, but we didn’t talk about in what way. Music seemed important to her and to the whole place. She seemed to be training a young woman at the register and they were talking a little about music, she talked to me about the music that was playing in there twice, she asked me what I felt like listening to in there, and the man later was talking about Aerosmith. I didn’t get the impression he was a fan but I could be wrong. There was also some music-themed decor around the place.

Also I very much appreciated the Cartel connection! Cartel is my jam for sure. I didn’t order a coffee because I’d just been to The Organic Bean before the exhibit, and I get Cartel at home in Tucson a couple of times a week, but I definitely appreciated the Cartel vibe up there in Mesa.

This is what I had. It was strange and delicious. Pickles wrapped in pretzels and served hot. You could add on a cheese and I added beer cheese. The whole thing was fantastic.

I also liked how they serve Liquid Death. Strangely enough, the proprietor told me that when she and her husband got married, Liquid Death sponsored their wedding. The story was a bit more involved than that but it’s not mine to tell go there and buy a pretzel. She’ll tell you. But the basic idea is, there’s way more of a Liquid Death connection than you might expect.

Check this out. Milano Music Center in Mesa. It totally reminded me of the old Chicago Music Store in Tucson before they . . . well, before they did the unspeakable thing that they did which will forever remain a Tucson tragedy.

But anyway, Milano Music Center in Mesa was awesome! Look at that pedal collection! It was a really great place. I do not know this personally for a fact, but I have been told that the people who own it are the parents of the guitarist for Jimmy Eat World. This fact is completely unconfirmed. I actually didn’t even try to confirm it because it literally makes no difference to anyone if it’s false, and it’s so oddly particular that I’d rather just believe it even if there’s a chance it’s not true. Sometimes fiction is more accurate than the truth.

There is no public restroom at Milano Music Center. I know this because there is a big sign taped to the door. This became a relevant fact for me because nice music stores like this have an effect on me quite similar to the well-known Mariko Aioki Phenomenon. It wasn’t that bad, I just had to take a leak, but still it made it so I couldn’t look around in there very much. But I will go back!