An American contemporary street artist, graphic designer, activist, and illustrator who emerged from the skateboarding scene, Shepard Fairey has inspired generations of artists with his through provoking and often controversial pieces. An icon of the contemporary art scene in the country and beyond, he is best known for his Obey series, a street art project and an experiment in phenomenology, his ubiquitous Hope image created originally as a grassroots activism tool to support Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, and the pervasive We the People poster series for the 2017 Women’s March and beyond. The first ten years of the artist’s practice are explored in the current exhibition at the Cranbrook Art Museum. Titled Shepard Fairey: Salad Days, 1989-1999, the show goes back to the roots of his graphic language and philosophies of the punk scene.The Influence of Punk Ethos Highly talented and dedicated, Shepard Fairey has been a consistent presence in national and international art scenes since the 1990s. In his early practice, punk ethos had a decisive role. “When I discovered punk ...
Tagged: graffiti, Shepard Fairey, street art
Read MoreImage credit: Courtesy of Shepard FaireyThe Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills launches its two summer exhibitions — Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die: Punk Graphics 1976-1986 and Shepard Fairey: Salad Days 1989-1999 — on Friday, June 16, slated to run through Oct. 7. Fairey will be in town to speak on Saturday, June 16, and other special events are planned throughout the summer in conjunction with the punk exhibit.
Tagged: 2018, Shepard Fairey
Read MoreThere’s no doubt the do-it-yourself mentality of punk rock runs through the DNA of Shepard Fairey’s work. With his retrospective exhibition “Salad Days, 1989-1999,” which arrives this weekend at the Cranbrook Art Museum, the iconic contemporary artist looks back on how the anti-authoritarian attitudes associated with skateboarding and the punk rock that provided the sport's soundtrack influenced his work. The DIY approach is evident throughout the exhibition, which was produced with the assistance of Detroit contemporary art gallery Library Street Collective and spotlights the punk aesthetics, philosophies and low-tech production methods used in the first decade of Fairey’s 30-year career. The Cranbrook show is far from the first local showing of Fairey’s work. He exhibited in Detroit in 2000 at the now-defunct contemporary art gallery C-Pop, and in 2015, Library Street Collective showed his work at its downtown gallery. The new show is "not only framed pieces,” says Fairey, who is spending the week before the opening in metro ...
Tagged: 2018, Shepard Fairey
Read MoreImage credit: Courtesy of Shepard Fairey The Cranbrook Art Museum in Bloomfield Hills launches its two summer exhibitions — Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die: Punk Graphics 1976-1986 and Shepard Fairey: Salad Days 1989-1999 — on Friday, June 16, slated to run through Oct. 7. Fairey will be in town to speak on Saturday, June 16, and other special events are planned throughout the summer in conjunction with the punk exhibit. Admission is $6-$10. Call 248-645-3323 or visit cranbrookartmuseum.org.— Gary Graff
Tagged: Graphic Design, punk, Shepard Fairey
Read MoreCall Shepard Fairey the bait. Cranbrook Art Museum Director Andrew Blauvelt wanted to mount a large show on punk's influence on graphic art from the 1970s and 1980s, but worried no youngsters would show up. That's where "Shepard Fairey: Salad Days, 1989-1999" comes in, a small show that takes up one of the galleries at the end of the sprawling, visually dazzling "Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986." Both exhibitions will be up until Oct. 7.Punk performance posters fill one gallery in "Punk Graphics" at Cranbrook Art Museum. (Photo: Michael H. Hodges)"The two shows," Blauvelt said, "are linked at the hip." "Shepard was very influenced by the punk scene," he noted, adding that he needed Fairey "because I wanted to figure out a way to talk to young people" who might not connect with posters and ads for "ancient" groups like the Sex Pistols and Destroy All Monsters. So "Salad Days," which contains a range of ...
Tagged: Graphic Design, punk, Shepard Fairey
Read MoreBy Ryan Patrick HooperImage credit: Courtesy of Shepard FaireyIn the past 30 years, Shepard Fairey has become one of the most popular street artists in the world. From his early creations — like his signature “Obey Giant” designs featuring the likeness of wrestler Andre the Giant (pictured above) — to his 2008 campaign poster for Barack Obama, Fairey has carved a path very much his own in contemporary art. Now there’s a Michigan art museum that’s highlighting his early work with the help of downtown contemporary art gallery Library Street Collective. Ahead of his new exhibition “Salad Days, 1989-1999” at the Cranbrook Art Museum, Fairey spoke with CultureShift’s Ryan Patrick Hooper about the influence music has had on his work over the years for In The Groove — CultureShift’s award-winning series where a wide range of guests look back on three formative songs from three formative years of their life. Track #1: A Young Shepard Discovers the Sex Pistols As a teenager growing up in Charleston, South ...
Tagged: Shepard Fairey
Read MoreBY EMMA KLUG Galleries will feature DIY-style posters, zines, and album coversPHOTO COURTESY THE GALLERIES AT MOORE, PHILADELPHIA. PHOTO BY JOSEPH HU.Following a series of exhibitions that focused on street art, Cranbrook Art Museum is now attempting to explore the cultural impact of punk and post-punk through its new exhibits Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die: Punk Graphics, 1976-1986 and Shepard Fairey: Salad Days, 1989-1999. Paying homage to the art forms and artists that helped visually define the movement, Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die features appropriated or borrowed images, collage and montage work, as well as DIY zines and flyers. The exhibit will also take a look at how comics, the horror genre, and modern art influenced the creation of punk graphics. “Since its rebellious inception in the 1970s, punk has always exhibited very visual forms of expression,” says the Cranbrook Art Museum Director, Andrew Blauvelt, who curated the exhibitions. “The energy of ...
Tagged: Graphic Design, punk, Shepard Fairey
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