Obey (Shepard Fairey)
The son of a doctor and a real estate agent, Fairey grew up in South Carolina, studied art and graduated from the Art Academy in 1988. In 1989 he conceived the project that would give him the first notoriety "Andre the Giant Has a Posse". The artistic performance consisted in scattering the walls of the city with stickers that reproduced the face of the wrestler André the Giant. The project was so successful that the stickers were replicated by other artists in other cities. Fairey then explained that there was no particular meaning in the choice of the subject, the sense of the campaign was to produce a media phenomenon and to make citizens reflect on their relationship with the urban environment.
The consecration took place during the US election campaign 2008, which saw Barak Obama as the protagonist. The Hope poster reproduced the stylized face of Barack Obama in four-color, which became the icon of the election campaign, which then brought the Democratic representative to the White House.
Art critic Peter Schjeldahl called the poster "the most effective American political illustration since Uncle Sam's time".
From that moment on, Shepard Fairey's career saw an escalation of world-renowned projects, recognized by critics as powerful communicative images and a mirror of the events that have most characterized our contemporaneity. From Obama's election, through issues related to technology and social platforms, to the climate and the drastic changes that our planet has been facing in recent decades.
Obay is a spokesperson for social messages, which very often remain unexpressed, this artist through his recognized fame brings to the forefront difficult and very thorny issues, trying to give a personal vision through his famous posters.
