CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE SHEPARD FAIREY AND STREET ART AS POLITICAL PROPAGANDA A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Master of Arts in Art, Art History by Andrea Newell August 2016 Copyright by Andrea Newell 2016 ii The thesis of Andrea Newell is approved: _______________________________________________ ____________ Meiqin Wang, Ph.D. Date _______________________________________________ ____________ Owen Doonan, Ph.D. Date _______________________________________________ ____________ Mario Ontiveros, Ph.D., Chair Date California State University, Northridge iii Acknowledgements I would first like to thank my thesis advisor Dr. Mario Ontiveros of the Art Department at California State University, Northridge. He always challenged me in a way that brought out my best work. Our countless conversations pushed me to develop a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of my research and writing as well as my knowledge of theory, art practices and the complexities of the art world. He consistently allowed this paper to be my own work, but guided me whenever he thought I needed it, my sincerest thanks. My deepest gratitude also goes out to my committee, Dr. Meiqin Wang and Dr. Owen Doonan, whose thoughtful comments, kind words, and assurances helped this research project come to fruition. Without their passionate participation and input, this thesis could not have been successfully completed. I would also like to acknowledge Dr. Peri Klemm for her constant support beyond this thesis and her eagerness to provide growth opportunities in my career as an art historian and educator. I am gratefully indebted to my co-worker Jessica O’Dowd for our numerous conversations and her input as both a friend and colleague. Lastly, I must express my very profound gratitude to both my mother Janice Atwell and to my fiancé Diego Bravo for providing me with unwavering support, love and encouragement throughout my years of study and through the long process of researching and writing this thesis. This great accomplishment would not have been possible without them. Thank you. iv Table of Contents Copyright ii Signature Page iii Acknowledgements iv Abstract vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Negotiating Terms: What is Street Art? 3 Chapter 2: With A Rebel Yell: The Influence of Skate and Punk 11 Chapter 3: The OBEY Campaign 18 Chapter 4: Hope, Progress and Political Activism 27 Conclusion 37 Bibliography 39 Appendix 42 Abstract SHEPARD FAIREY AND STREET ART AS POLITICAL PROPAGANDA By Andrea Newell Master of Arts in Art, Art History This study examines the commercialization of Shepard Fairey’s street art as a means of social and political activism. Street art as a genre, a now global phenomenon, evolved out of youth subcultures such as skateboarding and punk rock. Though initially a subversive activity aimed at questioning mechanisms of control, especially in a neoliberal market, Fairey’s artwork illustrates that a seemingly meaningless image can become a universally recognized, branded logo, a symbol of rebellion, resistance and regaining of control from those in power. Furthermore, the commercialization of street art due to its communicability and appealing of imagery from popular culture not only democratizes art practice by speaking to both an art and non-art audience, but also in doing so facilitates political activism and social awareness by providing an easily recognized logo, such as the Obey Icon face and Obama Hope poster. The content and dissemination of Shepard Fairey’s artworks have remained constant despite commercial success and recognition in collections such as the Smithsonian’s National Portrait gallery and his extensive self-managed print market. Street art, then, can exist in the urban space, digital space, and within the art market simultaneously. vi Introduction Street art’s global presence in urban space, the commercial art market, online, and in popular culture as well as the diverse range of artists, styles and media reflect the complex and nuanced position of historians, curators and critics of the genre. The existence of street art in both urban space and within the fine art framework of museums and for profit galleries challenges the insistence that street art should remain, quite literally, in the street. Crossover between the illegally posted works in urban space and the work produced for the for-profit market and exhibitions confounds the distinction of street art as either a fine art or populist form. Despite the propensity of street artists, including Shepard Fairey, to use the postmodern tradition of appropriation1, street art transcends any historical precedent. Since the 1970s, street art in the United States has been discussed in reference to its historical and cultural lineage. Graffiti and subway art developed alongside hip-hop on the East Cost, most prominently in Philadelphia and New York. On the West Coast, skateboarding and punk rock influenced new media such as the Xerox flyer, and an insistence on social and political consciousness. What street art scholarship lacks, is, if and how the inclusion of street art in museums and the commercial market alters its anti- establishment ethos and intent when circulated beyond urban space. This thesis does not aspire to create a complete linear chronology of street art nor does it attempt to address the global phenomenon of street art. The first chapter of this thesis will negotiate the definition of street art to separate it from the discourses and 1 Appropriation here references Andy Warhol’s appropriation of recognizable mass media imagery from popular culture and advertising logos in Pop Art. The seriality of these images changed or shifted their meaning, especially as a critique of consumerism. 1 aesthetics of graffiti. A clear understanding of the term street art will outline its forms of media and examine the transition from graffiti’s typographic practice to one of figurative logos – an important distinction that draws street art into the realm of advertising and branding in order to broaden the artistic practice from an insider language to a means of instantaneous recognition, universal communication and a vehicle of political and social commentary. After the next chapter’s discussion of skateboarding and punk rock’s history, the subsequent chapters will explore how logos and stickers influenced Shepard Fairey’s OBEY campaign, a propaganda study that challenged mechanisms of control, and how the social consciousness of punk rock’s credo influenced the production of a campaign poster that impacted the outcome of the 2008 United States presidential election. The aim of this thesis is to illustrate that street art has not lost its rebellious ethos, and still delivers biting social and political critiques despite its mainstream commercialism. A focus on Fairey’s works that exist outdoors, are distributed by his self- made print market, and are a part of the permanent collection in a nationally recognized institution, demonstrates how street art can simultaneously exist in urban space for one purpose and in the market on an entirely different agenda. The thread that holds these seemingly disparate medias together is both an emphasis on the street art logo as a means of powerful iconography and a new type of branding and advertising, and the insistence on raising awareness of social, political and environmental issues through grass roots commercial marketing. 2 Chapter 1 Negotiating Terms - What is Street Art? The adoption of the term post-graffiti, a result of the commercialization of graffiti in New York during the 1980s, signaled a shift in the art form and attempted to elevate the artists and their work from an illegal act done on the street to a collectible art form worthy of recognition in the art world.2 This shift in terminology creates a break from the past. This break is important because it defines street art as a wholly new art practice, divorced from any negative connotations of its distant cousin, graffiti. Establishing a new term also allows art historians, writers, and critics to interpret the new practice within various theoretical frameworks. Since the 1980s, a shift in artistic practice, including the use of new media such as stencils, wheat pastes, silk screens and stickers, required a new term to reevaluate the new direction in art – Street Art. Pinpointing the advent of the term Street Art is a point of contention among historians. Some like Blanché attribute it to John Fekner, the street art pioneer, who spray-painted stencils in New York throughout the 1970s, whose broad definition of the term is, “All art on the street that’s not graffiti.”3 On the other hand, Daichendt traces the “institutional use of street art as a term […] to Allan Schwartzman’s Street Art (New York: Doubleday, 1985), where he used the term to describe this new 2 In 1983, the prestigious Sidney Janis Gallery in New York curated an exhibition titled “Post-Graffiti.” Graffiti writers such as Toxic, Daze, Crash, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michele Basquiat, transposed their train or subway work onto canvases as graffiti was marketed as the next big art investment. While some art collectors embraced the new movement in the commercial art world, such as Dolores Neumann who curated the show, art critics such as Grace Glueck considered gallery graffiti a passing fad and openly criticized the show as an attempt to legitimize what was still considered at its base, a criminal activity. See Grace Glueck, “Gallery View; On Canvas, Yes,