Mention the term “street art” and the practioner most likely to come to mind
is the urban graffiti artist Banksy, whose work has leapt in price from an
average £500 to £50,000 in the past five years. However, it was another
exponent of the artform who inspired Banksy and numerous others.
Shepard Fairey, born in 1970 in South Carolina, and now based in Los Angeles,
was one of the first street artists and is about to stage his first
exhibition in London for seven years: Nineteeneightyfouria, on November 2-18
at the StolenSpace gallery in the Old Truman Brewery in London. With more
than 100 pieces on offer, it is Fairey’s biggest exhibition to date, but the
prices start at a remarkably affordable £60.
Beth Gregory, assistant director at StolenSpace, says: “Fairey is not quite a
graffiti artist, as his work is not letter-based artwork, but he has taken
the ethic of graffiti to create visual iconic images that are then
propagated over and over again, in the way grafittists do.
“He uses posters, stencils and any number of different media to get the image
across to more people. He understands the way our consumer society works:
what he is doing is using the power of advertising, except that his is a
brand without a product.”
Fairey does this with his posters adorning advertising billboards without
actually advertising anything, or as he puts it, “market nothingness”.
Appropriately enough, Fairey’s interest in art originated in the street. In
the mid1980s he became a devotee of skateboarding, which led him to develop
a desire to create the paraphernalia that went with it.
“Skateboarding in the Eighties was doit-yourself,” he says. “That was what got
me into making T-shirts and screenprinting. At first I cut stencils and
spray-painted shirts. Then I realised my art teacher had a primitive
screenprint rig in the back room. I started screenprinting shirts for myself
and a couple extra for friends. You could see that in a short time in
1984-85 my whole career was beginning to form, based on that stuff.”
Fairey first made his name in 1989, when he was still at the Rhode Island
School of Design, from which he graduated in 1992 with a BA in illustration.
He created a sticker campaign called “Andre the Giant Has a Posse”, which in
turn evolved into a campaign called “Obey Giant”. The images that he created
were replicated across the globe and a selection can be seen on his website
(www.obeygiant.com), becoming, in Fairey’s own words, an “experiment in
phenomenology”.
Ms Gregory adds: “Fairey’s work is clearly influenced by Pop Art, Andy
Warhol’s production techniques and our throwaway society, in that he
creates, for example, fly posters.”
Because he utilises various media the prices for his works vary hugely, from
his screenprints, the cheapest of his works, which start at about £60, to
large canvasses, which climb to many tens of thousands of pounds. This is a
deliberate strategy on Fairey’s part: while he is now an established and
influential artist , an effort has been made to stay in touch with people
who first bought his work and who would not always be seen as typical art
collectors.
There is a huge range of work on offer at the new exhibition, including a
screenprint run of his most famous image, Obey. It is an edition of
ten and each costs £600. Then there are images that can be bought in several
forms: Mujer Fatal is available as a stencil collage/mixed media
canvass for £5,070, or as a ruby lithograph for £1,010. The same forms and
prices apply to Proud Parents. Alternatively, This Machine Kills
Fascists can be bought as a large canvas for £15,000, or as a ruby
lithograph for a more affordable £1,010.
Fairey is very much an artist of his time, not confining himself to
“traditional” canvases, but also working as a graphic designer and
illustrator. In 2003 he founded the Studio Number One design agency, which
produced the cover for the albums Elephunk and Monkey Business,
by the Black Eyed Peas, as well as the poster for the film Walk the Line.
He also published a book last year, the title of which could be said to sum up
what his work is about: Supply and Demand: the Art of Shepard Fairey.
This is an artist who should certainly not be underestimated. Amid all the
trendiness and commentary on contemporary society, Fairey’s striking images
may well pass the test of time.
WHAT’S IT WORTH?
I attended the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg in 1946 and sat
a few feet away from Rudolf Hess, Hermann Goering and the other defendants.
I still have the admission ticket and I wondered if you could tell me how
much it is worth? ERNEST LOWENBERG Wembley, London
The trial of 24 political and military leaders of Nazi Germany in the
International Military Tribunal is the most famous of the Nuremberg trials,
which were held after the Second World War, from 1945 to 1949.
Richard Bromell, of Charterhouse Auctioneers and Valuers, says that there is a
good market for documents and artefacts related to the Second World War,
adding: “From an historical point of view, collectors find objects from the
period very interesting, particularly letters and diaries, which can be very
evocative of the period.”
Mr Bromell suggests that the ticket has some historical importance and is
valuable because the trial was of well-known figures. “If you can connect an
object to a famous name, the interest increases considerably,” he says. “We
sold a bottle of Moët champagne last month for £1,700 because it was taken
from Hitler’s bunker.”
Estimating the value of the ticket is difficult because of its rarity, but it
could fetch up to £500 at auction, Mr Bromell says. whatsitworth@thetimes.co.uk
