Results tagged “poster”

Los Angeles-based artist Shepard Fairey might be left with only his "hope" when it comes to the suit and counter-suit battles being waged in court right now regarding his iconic adaptation of a photograph of Barack Obama for use in his 2008 Presidential campaign.

Firas Alkhateeb, the 20-year-old Chicgaoan, didn't intend his Obama Joker face as a political statement to be seen around the world. Actually, it wasn't him who put the word "socialism" below it and then plastered posters in Los Angeles. "It really doesn't make any sense to me at all," he told the LA Times in an interview. "To accuse [Obama] of being a socialist is really ... immature. First of all, who said being a socialist is evil?" Alkhateeb had uploaded his Obama remix of a TIME Magazine cover on January 18th. By April, someone had taken it, deleted the magazine references and made the socialism poster found in L.A. By Friday, the original work uploaded to Flickr had around 20,000 views and was taken down by the company because of copy-right infringements.

Although the original source of the controversial Obama poster appears to be a student in Chicago (he made the joker face and posted it on Flickr. Then someone apparently mashed it up with the word "socialism"), a conservative radio talk show has exploited the posters further making a contest out of it. The posters were first noted in Los Angeles back in April and received widespread attention beginning August 3rd. Seeing an opportunity, talk show host Alex Jones began a contest encouraging people to put up more posters. The poster had "Democrats and Obamanoids going ballistic," his website said. Some of Jones' posters--with his website address on one version--have appeared in San Francisco, but around 500 appeared in a Florida town leading to the questioning of at least one teenager. Previously: Shepard Fairey Opines on Obama Socialism Posters.

Shepard Fairey, famous for his street art and the famous Obama poster, spoke to the LA Times about the other Obama poster that was first seen around Los Angeles last week. "I don't agree with the political content of the poster," Fairey said of the poster that has Obama's face painted like The Dark Knight's Joker with the word "socialism" below. "They don't realize that Medicaid is a socialist program." Fairey and his circle of street artist contacts say they are clueless as to the street artist's identity. Have Republicans caught on? "It could be possible that a right-winger finally got hip to the idea that street art can get people's attention and be a valuable way to express a point of view," Fairey said. An LAist commenter last week was happy to see this kind of artwork. "Clearly the president is doing something right if he is inspiring the right wingers to go out and try to scare people into thinking that he is dooming us to a socialist future," wrote airickoo.

Talk about a mixed message: Posters of President Obama "in Heath Ledger-style Joker make-up with the legend 'Socialism' beneath it has been popping up recently on surfaces around L.A.," Bedlam Magazine reports. While the image does allude to the ubiquitous Shepard Fairey 'HOPE' posters, and its numerous spoofs and riffs, this piece of what our sister-site Chicagoist calls "guerrilla artwork," is trying to convey an altogether different take on the state of the nation under Obama. No one has reportedly come forward to take responsibility for the image. The folks at Bedlam take a stab at analysis:

But is it serious? We'd like to know who the artist is and whether this is the sort of provocative guer[r]illa public art that is intended to encourage people to think (although about what, we're not sure).

Continue reading "Obama as Dark Knight of Socialism Appears in Los Angeles"

First the Associated Press threatened to sue artist Shepard Fairey by tomorrow. Now Fairey is beating them to the punch. Today he filed suit against the news agency to vindicate him from accusations that he violated copyright laws.

The Associated Press has claimed that the famous "Hope" portrait of President Barack Obama created by Eastsider Shepard Fairey infringes its copyright in a 2006 photo. The AP is seeking credit and compensation, according to, err, the AP.

Barack Obama was sitting next to George Clooney at a 2006 National Press Club event in Washington D.C. when freelance photographer Mannie Garcia snapped some shots of the now-president for the Associated Press. One o those images is now one of the most famous in the world. "It looks like the image that poster artist Shepard Fairey said looked presidential, telling the Washington Post: 'He is gazing off into the future, saying, 'I can guide you,' ' actually showed our new president listening to George Clooney. Or, probably more likely, fellow Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.)," said photographer and sleuth blogger Tom Gralish of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Gralish was obsessed with finding the photo behind the Obama poster and he finally did.

The Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery this week announced that they have acquired Shephard Fairey's collage portrait of Obama that was a defining image of his campaign. "This is the original collage that the prints and campaign materials were based on," museum spokeswoman Bethany Bentley said in an email to Jesus Sanchez at The Eastsider LA, a blog devoted to the city's region where Fairey's studio and gallery resides.

Echo Park artist Shepard Fairey was always widely known in Los Angeles for his ubiquitous OBEY images illegally plastered on walls in the streets and commissioned in clubs. But once his poster became the defining image of Barack Obama's bid for president, it also became Fairey's. "[It] might be the defining image of my life," he told TIME in a video interview. The magazine is on newsstands now, so if you're a proud eastsider like Jesus Sanchez over at The Eastsider LA, you'll probably want to pick this one up.

      

Despite Barack Obama being done with visiting Los Angeles during his campaign, activist art is popping up all around town--from today's Shepard Fairey installation at TenOverSix to a recent mural in South LA. Last weekend, a large poster banner was installed on a wall of Smog Design at 1725 Silverlake Blvd. next to Spaceland (you can see it when driving northbound on the left side).

LA Times' top blog, Top of the Ticket, spoke to local artist Shepard Fairey about all the spoofs on his Obama "HOPE" poster. One replaces the word "HOPE" under Obama to "HYPE" and another shows Sarah Palin or John McCain with "NOPE" under their faces. Unimpressed, finding them too negative, Fairey told the blog that "when something becomes pervasive enough, it becomes a reference point that people are going to use for commentary and parody. They build their own thing off of it and use it for their own agenda." Fairey will be installing an Obama window display at TenOverSix on Beverly this weekend.

The "Grim Sleeper" has eluded the LAPD for 23 years killing at least 11 people and leaving one survivor all in the South LA area. But investigators believe at least six of the 30 unsolved murders they are looking into right now will turn out to be victims of the serial killer.

Chicago graphic designer, Jenny Beorkrem, designs neighborhood posters of various cities in her own simple typographic style. A couple weeks ago, she released the Los Angeles one (available in three colors, see large image here), adding to the collection of other cities that include San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Brooklyn and Manhattan.