The Deeper Suck of Shepard Fairey’s “Art”

If you’ve seen this once, you’ve seen it a thousand times, and didn’t even need to see it at all. There’s a lot of the usual air-headed post-modern and passe pop-culture subtext lurking in this blight on our culture, but you have to have the taste of a true troglodyte to care. And trogs are what Fairey had.

Working diligently within the trog world, his dedication at sticking this chunk of gunk up on whatever blank and wretched bit of urban blight could be had gave Fairey a bit of a following. Which of course is all one needs to be an artist in today’s slack society. Not talent, not ability, not skill, just dedication to blunt repetition is enough. Do something ugly once and nobody will care. Make your ugly thing universal and you’ll get, as Fairey intuited, a posse that’s grown fond of your particular flavor of grunge.

In concert with the other scant souls of the Skateboard Skool of Skribble, Fairey then went on to diminish his small gifts by aping the worst aspects of Socialist Realism (Drawing heavily on Soviet postage stamps and posters since they were easier to imitate than the paintings — which required, you know, actual skill.).

Like the other protected kids of his generation Fairey was careful to lard his “art” with that ironic edge that the artists of slight talent of our age all employ to the point of entropy.

This dull edge of “ironice reference” has two advantages for artists of small ability.

• First, it hides the fact that you can’t draw.

• Second it discloses to all and sundry that you are part of the conformist cool set.

“Irony” is the edge that says “Isn’t it fun to play with fascism when you live in a country that keeps you forever safe from it?” It’s a kind of Code Pink SteamPunk.

(via OBAMAGANDA: CHANGE AND OBEY. YOUR CHOICE? @ AMERICAN DIGEST)