It was 1989 and I was just 18 learning to model from the old pros at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI. There was a great dead head revival scene as well as a retro look. World music was hip and no one really grasped the coming Seattle invasion quite yet. The late 1980's were nice in a college town...as long as you could be anywhere to avoid big hair bands (cringe).
Around the city like on gas station pumps there were these hysterical little stickers, with this huge wrestler we had all grew up with on Sunday mornings Andre the Giant. Alot of white kid culture was ranking on urban culture because it had only morphed into this commercial area...alot of us from urban areas had kind of given up on rap..it had been sold the the suburban kids. Just around the corner in the 90's it would be smoothed and streamlined to be sensual, hip and even funny...and sinister in a way that was attractive, not mere mindless hypnotic music like today (with some exception). I guess every one's memories of their 20's are the best time of your life shtick.
So this artist who was obviously sick of the idle threats from racial tensions gave us all something to laugh at..that Andre seemed to have formed a gang. "Andre the Giant has a Posse". I mean you would be pumping gas and just fall over laughing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/André_the_Giant_Has_a_Posse
It was freedom to be reactionary, as alot of street art was at that time. It was sort of this surrealist approach to taking something else and pasting/cutting to make a statement or better yet, rob something commercial of its power. Billboards were vandalized in humorous ways as to take away the product ad's power. We were all sick of the 80's.
Over the years I have watched this artist grow and was glad he made it..though a bit concerned over seeing Andre's face blown up huge and close up and streamlined in order to make a threatening logo. But that is where this artist was going from the beginning. Within every rebel is the next dictator. And the original Andre's intent was to take power from someone else by taking it back from them by the artist himself.
And artists all want to be gods anyway..rightly so. No great art would be produced without this sense of power and grandeur.
A few years ago I was again modelling. Girls my age in 1989 were looking at an art book. There was Andre's face, close up. I asked about it. They did not even know where it came from, which is a shame. They thanked me for the story of origin but I knew that really, in the big scheme of things, all that mattered to his world and theirs, was that he made it into that picture book. That he was not an 'outsider' artist.
Recently down across from the gas station next to Pine Street in the women's shelter, I saw some artwork that had been pasted up. It was black and white and red..all over(ha).
At first I thought this was so cool that it was put down here, where some certain activist had been putting up activist sites everywhere for a beat down population. It had an Eastern European communist look to it. It said things about the dictators only having as much power as the 'people' give them with a giant boot coming down on 'the people'. Then it has this Asian female looking very communist chic. In a neo-Satanist/goth sort of way..u know the people who use a pentagram where the top pointy ends have been turned into a heart and there is alot of tattooing, I believe its mandatory with these kids. As long as it looks artsy, non threatening. You know, the new world out there that goes along well with gentrification: Funky without being Freaky. 'Safe' rebellion.
Then it had all these conflicting messages like there was some social commentary but it looked so polished...and it claimed it wanted to make peace at any cost but it was alot of war mongering.
Uhhhhh, yeah.
Anyway I just kept looking at it..I knew it was that artist and I was excited even maybe convinced that if he was in town, maybe he thought that if a person was going up against such oppression can do street activism that it would be cool to let them know that there were others who were established of similar mind. I mean this was an odd place for this to be..no one posts down there because it's just homeless people and industry or bars and the highway is right there. Yer not gonna get alot of exposure..like one would in Harvard Sq., Cambridge, MA. http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Arts/70863-SHEPARD-FAIREY/.
But the more I looked at it, the more I realized that it was sheep in wolf's clothing.
Around the city like on gas station pumps there were these hysterical little stickers, with this huge wrestler we had all grew up with on Sunday mornings Andre the Giant. Alot of white kid culture was ranking on urban culture because it had only morphed into this commercial area...alot of us from urban areas had kind of given up on rap..it had been sold the the suburban kids. Just around the corner in the 90's it would be smoothed and streamlined to be sensual, hip and even funny...and sinister in a way that was attractive, not mere mindless hypnotic music like today (with some exception). I guess every one's memories of their 20's are the best time of your life shtick.
So this artist who was obviously sick of the idle threats from racial tensions gave us all something to laugh at..that Andre seemed to have formed a gang. "Andre the Giant has a Posse". I mean you would be pumping gas and just fall over laughing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/André_the_Giant_Has_a_Posse
It was freedom to be reactionary, as alot of street art was at that time. It was sort of this surrealist approach to taking something else and pasting/cutting to make a statement or better yet, rob something commercial of its power. Billboards were vandalized in humorous ways as to take away the product ad's power. We were all sick of the 80's.
Over the years I have watched this artist grow and was glad he made it..though a bit concerned over seeing Andre's face blown up huge and close up and streamlined in order to make a threatening logo. But that is where this artist was going from the beginning. Within every rebel is the next dictator. And the original Andre's intent was to take power from someone else by taking it back from them by the artist himself.
And artists all want to be gods anyway..rightly so. No great art would be produced without this sense of power and grandeur.
A few years ago I was again modelling. Girls my age in 1989 were looking at an art book. There was Andre's face, close up. I asked about it. They did not even know where it came from, which is a shame. They thanked me for the story of origin but I knew that really, in the big scheme of things, all that mattered to his world and theirs, was that he made it into that picture book. That he was not an 'outsider' artist.
Recently down across from the gas station next to Pine Street in the women's shelter, I saw some artwork that had been pasted up. It was black and white and red..all over(ha).
At first I thought this was so cool that it was put down here, where some certain activist had been putting up activist sites everywhere for a beat down population. It had an Eastern European communist look to it. It said things about the dictators only having as much power as the 'people' give them with a giant boot coming down on 'the people'. Then it has this Asian female looking very communist chic. In a neo-Satanist/goth sort of way..u know the people who use a pentagram where the top pointy ends have been turned into a heart and there is alot of tattooing, I believe its mandatory with these kids. As long as it looks artsy, non threatening. You know, the new world out there that goes along well with gentrification: Funky without being Freaky. 'Safe' rebellion.
Then it had all these conflicting messages like there was some social commentary but it looked so polished...and it claimed it wanted to make peace at any cost but it was alot of war mongering.
Uhhhhh, yeah.
Anyway I just kept looking at it..I knew it was that artist and I was excited even maybe convinced that if he was in town, maybe he thought that if a person was going up against such oppression can do street activism that it would be cool to let them know that there were others who were established of similar mind. I mean this was an odd place for this to be..no one posts down there because it's just homeless people and industry or bars and the highway is right there. Yer not gonna get alot of exposure..like one would in Harvard Sq., Cambridge, MA. http://thephoenix.com/Boston/Arts/70863-SHEPARD-FAIREY/.
But the more I looked at it, the more I realized that it was sheep in wolf's clothing.
Then sadly I noticed that there was one part of it I really didn't like:
On the bottom left repeating a few times there is a square with a circle in it. Around the circle it says something like 'Peace and Equality by Any Means Necessary'. In the circle is this fat man with a beard, mustache and sunglasses. He has a slim 4 string base in his hands. The intimation is that he is a classic bluesman but he could be a white man.
On the bottom left repeating a few times there is a square with a circle in it. Around the circle it says something like 'Peace and Equality by Any Means Necessary'. In the circle is this fat man with a beard, mustache and sunglasses. He has a slim 4 string base in his hands. The intimation is that he is a classic bluesman but he could be a white man.
I did not take kindly to this.
It looks exactly like my ex before he lost weight at around the time he made a low budget movie titled "By Any Means Necessary". It had this Shakespeare phrase ripped off, saying something about pain being temporary and movies being forever.
What creeped me out is the subliminal message is that what was done to me was for the sake of equality and freedom.. or some ideal and again...I deserved it because everyone knows my ex was as innocent as a lamb in all our dealings and I am the quintessential Evil Woman (the image that has been worked to death in blues songs and rock for ages, freeing up men to be as equally irresponsible as you please)
If you don't believe me and think this is paranoia you don't know the way this system works.
I'll have to get a photo of it. Its the most arrogant thing I think I have come upon yet.
And worst it saddens me because he was so funny with those stickers in '89. Like I said, within every rebel...
Well, he certainly has confronted me with the 'idea of obedience'. (see Phoenix article). Too bad I cant afford to sell out and be a successful artist. Some of us are fighting oppression for real. Not playing games..using the blood of truly oppressed nations and populations to make a buck and play with Hollywood and the established order.
Black and white and blood red all over.
Here's a better article:http://thephoenix.com/Boston/News/71685-Defy-Shepard-Fairey/?rel=inf, http://www.complex.com/blogs/tag/shepard-fairey-sucks/,
of course now we are all grown up we must make sure no one does to our art what we did to others when WE were starting out (I bet when no one is around he refers to himself third party...just wait. It will happen.) http://animalnewyork.com/news/2008/04/shepard-fairey-threatens-to-su.php.
Ahh, like so many of my ex associates who are doing well now: "Selective history can build a career if no one takes notice of it" That is for SURE:http://www.myartspace.com/blog/2008/09/obamas-obedient-artist-is-shepard.html.
(Drum roll) Ladies and Gents! Attention please! The greatest irony award goes to....(tension mounting)....This artist!!! For doing the 'new improved' cover art for the literary piece 1984!! http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/13/shepard-faireys-cove.html !!
(for those who aren't familiar w/the book)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four.
viva el hipócrita!
Some real views of communism, for those true to freedom fighting, I think u will find some parellels: " When Chen Yushan (陈禹山) wrote the report "A Report Written in Blood" about the Zhang Zhixin (张志新) case and submitted it to Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦) for approval. According to Yang Siguang (杨西光), Hu Yaobang did not change a word and approved it for publication. Well, actually, Hu did say one thing: "Remove the sentence about how her throat was cut before the execution." But after the report was published, many readers called up and asked: "She was held down on the ground and then inhumanely deprived of her right to express the truth" -- now what was that all about? Chen Yushan had no excuse and told the readers that the truth of the matter was that her throat had been slashed. After hearing that, one reader broke down and cried over the telephone to say: "When Mr. Lu Xun (鲁迅) wrote 'In memory of Liu Hezhen (刘和珍),' he said that a comrade of Liu Hezhen said that this was not just a murder because it was death by torture on account of the signs of beating by sticks on the body. If signs of beating on the body was called death by torture back then, what kind of death is it when we slashed someone's throat before executing her? If Lu Xun were alive today, would he be so subtle? How would he have written this?"http://zonaeuropa.com/20060720_1.htm.
Nowadays there is no need to be so overt in the torture of citizens.
In an interview JFK junior claimed his mother told him of the Hollywood scene he was being drawn to "You can either act or you can Be". I never understood that quote fully until these years past. In fact, some people are forced to 'Be' instead of the existing as the ever deceptive artist, lying to himself all the time as he does to others. That is his nature. It's when such a creature defines himself by trying to run with real world affairs not make believe, that he makes a nuisance of himself.
The next time you hit the area, don't paste and leave boy! Stay at the shelter. Get down with 'The People'.
Humph.
Hi Rachael;
ReplyDeleteThis comment is being made per your request for me to test out the Blogger Comments which are getting messed up.
As it happens, all TI's have a posse, its just how many one is allowed to notice at any given time. But of course, there are posers, the ones standing in mid-sidewalk looking up at nothing, all to look extra stupid while stretching their spine, the universal aerial the perps seem to chase. The perps go silly after my yoga class, and yet they moved the class location closer to where I live. Go figure.
This morning I had a loitering excec type outside my apartment from 6 stories up. He was about 20' from the adjacent bus stop. When I first spotting him from my table at breakfast his overcoat was a orange brown color. When I was next lured to look out, there he was in the same place with a grey-brown overcoat. Not only a posse, by a chameleonic posse.
AJH
I have seen the "obey" posters around and wondered what they were about. So this guy Fairey is a hack? Too bad. There was a shop in my neighborhood that had all his stuff hanging on the walls like the Obama as Lincoln poster. I took the "hope" poster with a giant grain of salt. What can we ti's hope for?
ReplyDeleteI'm so old I remember Andre the Giant as well. Ahem, I think I'm older than you are even. I was in college in those years.
I'm so broke even I have no camera. Hope you get one for Christmas. Such a waste wasting film on perps anyway!!! I would own a vid cam or a cell phone with camera to slow down their "fun", however, if money grew on trees.