Shepard Farie Thread- love/hate?

[dr_flashbear]

I knew who he was before the Obama thing so I'm pretty familiar with his work and I've always really liked his pieces. The Obama poster was one of the only times he directly endorsed anyone, but all of his work is meant to explore our notion of propaganda in a satirical way. He models a lot of his style off of old political propaganda posters, which is where the style came from.

I like the aesthetic and the concept a lot, although I do think the Obama thing was pretty annoying, just because that's what he'll be remembered for, as opposed to all the years prior he spent developing his work and going out into the streets and putting it up himself.

As for whether it's art, it will always be debatable, but in my opinion art isn't a technical feat it's an expression. Regardless of whether or not it's easy to make a piece in a certain movement or style, the expression, message and intent are what's most important to me. Fairey's stuff really isn't that easy to emulate anyway, but even if you copied it exactly, you aren't coming at it with the same process, concept or background, so you're just copying for the sake of doing it.