shepard fairey – Moe Lane

#rsrh Hey, remember Shepard Fairey?

Sure you do! Shepard Fairey is that guy that traced that annoying agitprop of Obama that everybody copied, back when it was about the only socially acceptable way to make fun of the President. Oops! Did I just type that out? My bad.

Anyway, if you want to see what happens when Fairey covered over an existing mural in NYC to put up what appears to be a distinctly inferior mural of his own*, click this link. Fair warning: some of the pictures are probably not safe for work, as they involve the unauthorized addition of the fanciful depiction of male genitalia to the main work. But in an artistically relevant sense!

…Actually, yes, it was. This is a very interesting photo-post of street art (kudos to the blogger who did it), and there’s one picture in the middle that Fairey should have looked at, screamed “YES! THIS IS PERFECT!” – and then put up an armed guard to keep the taggers away until he could get the whole thing covered in lucite**. Click on the link here to see it, after you view the whole thing.

Moe Lane

*Personal opinion, but one apparently shared by a nontrivial proportion of the NYC street art community. Nice to see some common ground there.

**If, you know, he was an artist or something.

Shepard Fairey admits to stealing AP photo.

It makes you wonder what the AP has, to make this admission by HOPE-and-paste ripoff artist Shepard Fairey look like the preferable option:

In a strange twist to an already complicated legal situation, artist Shepard Fairey admitted today to legal wrongdoing in his ongoing battle with the Associated Press.

Fairey said in a statement issued late Friday that he knowingly submitted false images and deleted others in the legal proceedings, in an attempt to conceal the fact that the AP had correctly identified the photo that Fairey had used as a reference for his “Hope” poster of then-Sen. Barack Obama.

Via Deceiver.com, which also links to this report that at least some of Fairey’s attorneys are pulling out of the lawsuit. Which is actually a pity, as the most proper response to this situation is to root for injuries…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Big Government going after NEA next?

Regarding Ace’s thoughtful sound about Patterico’s speculation on what Andrew Breitbart has scheduled for our enjoyment this week: PUNCH Politics reminds us that transferred NEA/Ministry of Information staffer Yosi Sergant was partnered with “HOPE” artist Shepard Fairey. Which may explain why Big Government went to the trouble of pointing out the tagging done against Fairey last week. It’s a nice transition: ACORN to Fairey to Sergant… and if you don’t think that mainstream journalists aren’t keeping track of what Big Government is running now, well.

Moe Lane

PS: It really is that incestuous, among the professional activists of the Left.

Crossposted to RedState.

I believe that the techincal term for this is ‘tagging.’

My congratulations to the Left: you’ve given the Right a taste for guerrilla art.

That’s on the specially-treated against graffiti wall of Shepard Fairey, who is of course best known for ripping off an AP photo to create the most iconic political image of 2008 – and the most ironic one of 2009 (not to mention, one of the most parodied). For extra humor, Fairey likes to do precisely this kind of guerrilla art himself… and he’s probably swearing at Big Government‘s Best. Weblaunch. EVAR. right now anyway, which is a definite bonus.

Moving back to the main point, there’s at least one other tagging example (see BG’s link above for it); my guess is that they’re using a stencil and some spray paint. As a law-abiding Republican I of course heartily wave smy finger* in the direction of whoever is doing such naughty things – bad street artists! Bad! No biscuit! – and I am explicitly shaking my head and intoning that this sort of thing not be duplicated…

Moe Lane

*Admittedly, I know that I’ll get it back: wait, no, that’s MoveOn.org. Ach, well, these people all live in each others’ back pockets anyway.

Crossposted to RedState.

Rooting for Injuries Watch: The AP vs. that annoying trace artist guy.

You know: Shepard Fairey, who took time out from cosplaying a graphic artist for Minitruth and plagiarizing everything that moved to trace out the iconic image of our new President.

Oh, well, it’s America, so it’s not like we really know what to do with irony, anyway. Might as well just shoot in the head and leave it dead in a ditch somewhere; seems more honest, really. Anyway, the AP finally noticed that they got ripped off. Amusingly, they did not see this as merely the logical extension of their already-quite-obvious policy for 2008 (i.e., getting Barack Obama elected any which way that they could that didn’t involve actual weapons), and thus a humorous quirk of the election. We just shot irony, remember? There was a loud explosion and everything.

No, they lawyered up instead.

Continue reading Rooting for Injuries Watch: The AP vs. that annoying trace artist guy.