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We’ve all seen ‘em around, on telephone poles and switcher boxes in big cities and small towns seemingly everywhere: the street art of Shepard Fairey. It all started back in the late 80s, when he and some friends from the Rhode Island School of Design created the now-iconic “Andre the Giant has a posse” stickers, which were distributed far and wide by devoted bands of skaters and aficionados. When the WWF threatened to sue Fairey and friends on behalf of the deceased wrestler, the now-famous “OBEY” stickers began to appear, featuring a more stylized version of the Giant’s likeness without using his name. (The “obey” concept, along with Fairey’s “This is Your God” line of images, were borrowed from a John Carpenter movie; watch a few minutes of this clip and you’ll spot it. Perhaps not coincidentally, They Live also starred a WWF wrestler: “Rowdy” Roddy Piper.)
To most fans, the Andre the Giant and John Carpenter lifts were nothing more than playful postmodernist reappropriation of pop culture imagery. But according to a new article on Fairey’s work, as his fame began to grow and his work began to appear on tee-shirts and in art galleries, Fairey’s wink-wink graphic in-jokes started moving into the territory of out-and-out plagiarism. Check out some side-by-side examples:
On the left is a still from a 1956 film version of George Orwell’s 1984; on the right, an OBEY poster.
Is this kind of borrowing really so bad? Artist Mark Vallen makes a cogent case against it:
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.
Here’s a slightly more sinister example:
Fairey created the death-head “OBEY” image on the left, which was plagiarized from him by Wal-Mart for a line of tee-shirts. What Sam Walton’s band of merry filchers didn’t realize, however, was that Fairey had himself lifted the death-head logo — from the Nazi Gestapo. (Pictured above at right: a badge from an SS uniform.)
While there are plenty more examples here, this one is my favorite for the way it transforms an innocuous source into something sinister:
Of course, not everyone agrees that Fairey’s appropriations should be called plagiarism — what do you think?
Comments (28)
Comment
Check out the link. Plagiarism.
posted by Mac on 1-8-2008 at 11:20 am
heck, from what I understand, andy warhol did pretty much the same thing.
posted by Pearl on 1-8-2008 at 11:34 am
Plagiarism would be if he went around saying “everything I create came from my mind.” His claim to fame is taking the likeness of a pop icon and creating subversive art out of it. The whole point was to make people pay attention. The fact that he takes these symbols of mass organizations or revolutionaries and revamps them, they make a statement. Depending on the piece the joke is both inclusive and exclusive. Most people know the Angela Davis art, but most won’t know the Lords Party piece, or the IWW piece. He appropriates the images for subversive principles. Do you think it’s really any worse than every student on college campuses posting pictures of Che Guevara and Scarface on their walls? Its brilliant social commentary!
posted by Allyson on 1-8-2008 at 12:53 pm
Did Warhol fully credit his sources? Did Lichtenstein? This is modern art, not a master’s thesis. I agree that art, as a function, should provoke thought. If by taking an obscure image and placing it in a different context does the job, where’s the harm? As the saying goes, “borrowing with talent is inspired, borrowing without talent is stealing.”
To Fairey’s credit, he didn’t use iconic, easily recognizable images (like Warhol). Fairey did his research and found images that, outside of the image\art world, have been pretty much forgotten (harsh, but true). Borrowing? Yes. But if you cry plagiarism, you call damn near every post-modern work into question. Some of our finest modern arts (rap included) do the exact same thing.
posted by Firebrand on 1-8-2008 at 1:18 pm
Walter Benjamin would have a field day with this article. Are the arts’ authenticities diminished by reproduction when they weren’t even authentic in the first place?
posted by Jess on 1-8-2008 at 1:27 pm
Allyson and Firebrand are dead on.
Mark Vallen is simply trying to jumpstart his go-nowhere career by bashing someone who actually HAS one. It’s a time-honored tradition among the second-rate and failing. The fact that he passed out literature– including HIS OWN ART– amongst those standing in line at Fairey’s show ought to tell you he’s simply an opportunist out to raise his own profile. If he were truly interested in constructive dialogue he would have picked up the phone and made the local call to Fairey to ask him about it. Then, if he wasn’t satisfied with the answers– or at least wanted to include them– he could have offered up the other side of the coin. Instead, he posted a shrill call of “Look at Me!” in hopes of selling a few more canvases of his Jr. High caliber artwork. Pretty sad, really.
Maybe Vallen should just get back to basics and re-focus on his Sailor Moon fetish.
posted by Mack on 1-8-2008 at 1:37 pm
He has a clothing label, he’s making profits from other people’s artwork. Forgotten or not, it’s plagiarism. It’s not a brilliant social commentary, it’s stealing other people’s work.
posted by babel on 1-8-2008 at 2:36 pm
Good point, Mack!
This whole things smacks of opportunism. It’s one thing to create art and present it on its own merit, but to do it at the expense of someone else is unforgivable, bush-league, cheap-shot cowardice. Don’t go after someone else before you take a good look in the mirror.
Wow, I’m crabby today . . .
posted by Firebrand on 1-8-2008 at 2:42 pm
So, it’s OK for Lichtenstein because even the unwashed recognize his sources but it’s not OK for Fairey because his reverse homages are more educated? Give me a break! His work is wonderful and makes fresh what has become old, tired and often ignored. He’s making people think–even though that’s an unpopular trend these days. As for the 1984 poster, it sure looks like Ray Wise to me. What about that? Did the Devil make Shepard Fairey do it? Shepard Fairey rules.
posted by Alice on 1-8-2008 at 3:23 pm
I agree with Babel. I work for a major merchandising company and can tell you, Firebrand, that there is no such thing as borrowing copyrighted material for profit, no matter how forgotten it is. It’s illegal and dishonest.
And let’s not kid ourselves into believing these reproductions are making anyone think, Alice. Just what am I supposed to think about the Nazi death’s head? That it’s fresh and wonderful after all these years? I’ll tell you what it’s making people think “This is a kickass design and it looks great on a shirt”.
posted by elowsky on 1-8-2008 at 4:12 pm
as much as i disagree with making money off of nazi imagery, i agree that what shepard fairey does is a continuation of the prevalent art movements of the past century (dada, pop art, post-modernism, etc). and what shepard fairey does isnt just limited to shepard fairey.
the culture of the past 20 or so years has been taking and borrowing and making new things out of them. look at rap music, the recent “mash up” trends, and popular clothing for instance. while you can say that thats a sad indication that it’s become a culture of vultures, but you can also still argue that a lot of these things are still art and the product of creative hands.
posted by buu on 1-8-2008 at 4:34 pm
Besides the fact that he is exploiting current, living artists while paying them no royalties and putting those profits in his back pocket, the images that Fairey uses are simply…
banal.
For an artist who takes great pains to point out that his art is supposed to be social commentary, there seems to be a startling lack of commentary. He appropriates imagery from “radical” sources: 60’s counterculture, Marxist and Communist propaganda, and art movements which have been largely forgotten by the public. The way in which he uses those images is in direct conflict with his supposed aesthetic. He completely de-historicizes the images, strips them of their inherent meaning, and fixes them in a very narrow cultural window, again without any context or understanding of their origins.
If he were working in virtually any other creative medium, he would’ve been busted years ago. Think about it: if I’m writing a book about young adults, for example, I can’t just drop in a few dozen pages of Beverly Cleary or a chapter from Harry Potter. Even in music production, people have to credit and pay the original producers of any samples they use.
Using Fairey’s logic, I could simply Xerox one of his designs, change a color, and stick it on a t-shirt. Cha-ching!
posted by David on 1-8-2008 at 4:43 pm
I believe this “appropriation” was the sort of thing that got an MIT team sued by a Canadian comic book writer for appropriating an image of a mecha-suited soldier and using it on the cover of a report for the government called “The 21st Century Soldier”. If MIT scientists can’t appropriate without losing a lawsuit, Fairey’s treading on awfully thin ground — usually “educational fair use” trumps artistic merit.
posted by lleachie on 1-8-2008 at 5:23 pm
That Campbell’s soup can that everyone seems to be standing on in support of Fairey was PAINTED by Warhol. The fact that it was a can of soup was the scandal not that someone else created the can’s label first as it is with Fairey. Fairey didn’t stand Angela Davis in front of a canvas and redraw that image: he used someone elses.
And let’s all leave hip-hop alone as well because sampling is a lot different then releasing the entire song under your name.
posted by elowsky on 1-8-2008 at 5:23 pm
Babel, if that’s the case, then every musician, every actor, every writer who has profited from their form should give back their money because they all stole something from someone else, forgotten or not. Musicians don’t create new notes, they rearrange them to give a new impression, authors rearrange words and for the most part do not reinvent them, politics are the same promises and issues from the birth of government argued and rehashed (look at the debate quiz). We take from things that we see and we reinvent. Granted the foundation he uses for his art comes from others, the feelings it invokes, the message it gives, and the final product are completely different. My favorite is the propoganda picture with fists holding guns and in his remake they hold flowers. Think about the messages sent in each picture and tell me that it is not social commentary.
posted by Allyson on 1-8-2008 at 6:16 pm
Is the question here whether or not Fairy’s use of the images were unethical, or illegal? It’s not really plagiarism as much as it’s copyright infringement. If the original work is copyrighted or even registered, Fairy needs get approval from copyright holder. From what I remember, the WWF/Andre the Giant thing is what caused Vince McMahon to start copyrighting his characters and, if not a character (such as Andre), their image.
Whether or not Fairy’s claiming originality or education, he’s breaking copyright law if the image is protected.
More often than not the creator or owner of the image or company that commissioned it (think Marvel/DC comics, the film company that put out the above poster) didn’t bother to properly protect images and likenesses until people like Fairy exposed the need to do that.
Usually, the only recourse for the copyright holder is for the user to cease and desist. The holder rarely is able to collect proceeds from the user.
Or is the issue here whether or not Fairy deserves any kudos for his work?
posted by ramon on 1-8-2008 at 7:12 pm
The short story Melancholy Elephants by Spider Robinson is an interesting meditation on the phenomenon of art vs. copyright. It’s available on Spider’s website.
posted by zale on 1-8-2008 at 8:04 pm
Leonardo da Vinci said that no one creates from a vacuum.
In my mind the image comparisons referenced here are not similar enough for there to be an accusation of plagiarism or copyright infringement. They are similar, but it’s not as though Fairy took the image verbatim, and reproduced it for profit. Composition, color, and subject matter vary so much from the “original” image given. Just a change of media makes it different enough to avoid any sense of plagiarism.
Copyright infringement requires there to be more than 50% of the original content. Cropping, media variance, color, are all important to overall composition, therefore changing any of that changes the original content. Even change of context can be a sufficient change. If Marcel Duchamp can take a urinal, turn it upside down, and call it a fountain, so that I can view it at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, than Shepherd Fairey can reference other forms of art in an entirely hand made work.
@elowsky
Fairey stencils, then paints. He hand cuts the stencils. Warhol screenprinted, often using a photograph as the source image transferring it through emulsion. Both artists are using pop reference material and transforming it with their process. I don’t see much difference between the two.
posted by Witera33it on 1-8-2008 at 8:06 pm
Absolutley not Plagiarism. It is called appropriation. Some of my friends and I appropriated the Andre the Giant idea last year-making it our own with the additional layer of interpretation.
posted by Stephanie on 1-8-2008 at 8:57 pm
Art is Art.
Law is law.
Two subjects that should remain as far from each other as we can possibly keep them.
posted by Greg VA on 1-8-2008 at 10:16 pm
This is one of my favorite posts and comment threads ever!
posted by LorinJuliet on 1-9-2008 at 7:36 am
Profiting off of other people’s copywrights is against the law. Don’t like it? Then fight to change the law. . .
posted by Proudgamer (MatthewB) on 1-9-2008 at 9:37 am
well, i think its safe to say that for the past century or so art has basically been saying “f the rules” and to an extent, “f the law”, especially fairey who made his name by wheat pasting posters and spray painting stencils.
and i think rap/hip hop is totally applicable in this conversation. fairey is taking parts of something and reappropriating them to create something different (whether its different enough i guess is in the eye of the beholder) much like a producer/dj takes samples and reappropriates them into something new.
i dont think that everyone that heard, say, kanye west’s song “stronger” knew that that was a daft punk song sampled, and to be honest im sure a lot of people still dont know that its a daft punk song, nor do i think they care. im not saying thats right, but im saying i think that such practices are so prevalent these days that i dont think people think twice about it anymore.
and from there look at the remix/mix tape industry, which is basically guys taking other guys’ beats and doing their own song over it, most of the time not giving the proper credits in the liner notes. you know the song, you know the beat, but hearing someone else rap over it has made it different and sometimes a little more interesting.
and just to throw this out there, what are peoples’ thoughts on generic brands? payless shoes is stocked full of shoes that look like other brands of shoes. does a shoe that looks exactly like an adidas racing shoe not considered a copy because it has 1 more stripe?
posted by buu on 1-9-2008 at 10:50 am
Thanks to all who contributed, even the closed minded. All together, the comments clearly demonstrate what Shepard Fairey is trying to do and succeeding. Even things that annoy cause us to think. Anything that causes us to think and opine is better than parroting what others say.
posted by Alice on 1-9-2008 at 11:01 am
Allyson, I have to say I’m pretty disturbed by your position. To say that musicians and writers don’t create is absurd on its face. Frankly the entire concept of a “note” in modern music (especially in a digital, electronic world) is outdated, but that’s for another discussion.
The act of creation, regardless of medium, is an act of individual will. It requires the creator to have a vocabulary to work with, whether words, gestures, symbols, etc. Sometimes it can be a fine line between using fair use and plagiarism, and we all know that; sometimes things are gray.
Fairey is profiting off of the historical misery of others. Many of the images come from marginalized peoples or radicalized political movements; these people are highly unlikely to sue for copyright infringement, and Fairey knows this, and in fact counts on it. But he takes these images and uses them, often line for line, without crediting the original creators. This is HIGHLY UNETHICAL, and robs the audience of an additional layer of meaning to the pieces.
Allyson, this is where your analogy falls down. If Fairey were using a single image (of, say, a gun) as part of a larger composition, people probably wouldn’t have such an issue. But he uses whole swaths of other people’s imagery, and often makes it the center of his pieces.
Of course there are issues of law and copyright at work here, but ultimately I feel sorry for Fairey; he takes meaningful images and leaves them meaningless.
posted by David on 1-9-2008 at 11:13 am
David Says: “The act of creation, regardless of medium, is an act of individual will”
It’s so 19th century !!! So romantic, as in the romantic movement. I don’t blame you as it’s still a widely shared view on what an author is.
The thing is, “individual will” is probably the worst part in creation. Most of our individual wills are mundane, dull.
Accidents, chance, inspiration, subconsciousness, contradictions, amorality, desires, external constraints are a major part of creation.
And, youknow, you can will as you want, but you never really know WHAT is willing through you when you will… do you?
“This is HIGHLY UNETHICAL”
Well, it probably is unethical. But I’m not sure ethic as something to do with the quality of any artwork. It doesn’t seems like a factor in assessing if something is sucessful as an artwork.
For that matter, a lot of artwork from the past centuries and decades is and was sexist, for example.
posted by jln on 1-11-2008 at 6:40 pm
BY:
Did you get permission to post this art? lolzords,
MF:
“i’m not making a profit from it”
BY:
sorry, i apologize.
posted by Bornyesterday on 2-2-2008 at 6:28 pm
“If Marcel Duchamp can take a urinal, turn it upside down, and call it a fountain, so that I can view it at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, than Shepherd Fairey can reference other forms of art in an entirely hand made work.”
People who reference Duchamp when defending Fairey are willfully ignorant. When Duchamp (who in fact, actually made many of his supposed readymades) unveiled them, they were mocking the pretentiousness of art. Compare this to Fairey, who labels his bullshit artwork a “lesson in phenomenology”, and then acts in all seriousness like a fucking Andre the Giant face on a dollar bill is “serious artwork”. When people started to come up with highfaluting critique son what Duchamps urinals meant, he fled the art world and moved first to installation pieces, and finally out of it completely, dedicating the rest of his life mostly to chess.
In fact, this is part of the reason why Lichtenstein and Warhol’s later works went down hill; they started to buy the bullshit people said about them. By the 80’s Warhol sincerely believed that the shallowness he once ostensibly mocked, was the raison d’tiere of life. He even published a ridiculous gossip magazine mostly about him and others in the NY party scene in an attempt to prove his own immortal words, that forever haunted him, “that everyone will have their 15 minutes of fame”.
posted by Sean S. on 4-10-2008 at 12:30 am