Change we can't see coming

Shepard Fairey is riding the biggest wave of his career. He's instantly become a major league slugger, with his famous "Hope" poster of our newly crowned prince, Barack Obama. The only problem is that the commissioners of "fair use" (AP) are coming after him for copy right infringement and Mister Fairey is paddling furiously to stay one step ahead of that curveball.

At the most base level, the argument is about who owns the admittedly goofy image of our President, and should some sort of compensation be rendered to the owner for any further publication of that image. The lawyers may be arguing the balls and strikes of this case for some time, and the courts will eventually make some sort of call. Shepard Fairey will be either out or safe, but his home run may be forever tainted.

From the nosebleed seats, the argument is about something else entirely different
What is really at stake here is not the almighty dollar, its really about the integrity of art making, culture, American and Western Culture.

Appropriation of images has been in the art making dugout for a very long time. This is nothing new to the game. We learned, in the culture wars of the 80's that ones man's sacred chalice is another man's urinal. What happens ,for better or for worse, is that when an image is appropriated or co opted, meaning can change abruptly.

Should we be worried about the integrity of art making? Is that even a valid past post-modern construct? Given the plethora of images available at a keystroke today, does creative image making need to be concerned with the "original" , the immaculate concept, or the archetype?

If the answer is "yes", to all of the above, then what does that say about our current "State of the Art". Its not to say that the appropriated image , could not be at the service of ART, it can. The problem arises when the vast majority of image making is from recycled tidbits. The reshuffling, recycling and replaying, begins to de-volve into a centralized , mediocre media morass.

If the answer is "No" to all the above, then we can gleefully keep making work that will probably
allow us to aquire our fair share of the economic stimulus package, and we can do away with Mac Arthur Grants.

My friend, the ceramicist Jeff Irwin and I shared a studio for several years. We often made reference to the "Aesthetics of Laziness" when we were studio partners. We would goad each other into making the hard decisions, not settling for the easy button, working out difficult visual problems. I understand now years later, how as artists we struggle to leave the magnetic pull of the magma of medicocrity.

Connected to the hip of the Aesthetic of Laziness is his twin brother the Aesthetics of Convenience. These twins suckle at the breast of consumerism, and cannot taste the milk, becasue it is now so bland as to be unrecognizable.

So back to our friend Mister Fairey. If he indeed has committed a crime, is it against AP?
Or is he just the hapless leading man in a much larger narrative, that we can only begin to see unfold. At the end of the day, or the Century, will the famous "Hope" portrait be hanging in the National Portrait Gallery, with an asterik, to a footnote, apologizing for being the beginning of the end?

Sunday Feb. 15th Post script,
I woke up this morning and Bob Pincus of the San Diego Union weighs in on this, albeit more optimistically

Chromantic

BLDNG #6 (alternative view)
36"h x 75"w x 1"d
Color Duct tape on enameled hardboard
David Fobes 2008


My first experiments in color mixing began in second grade. On a cold, wintry gray Maryland afternoon, I stole my way to the under window heat radiator and “accidentally” dropped broken bits of crayola, down through the grate and onto the hot metal a few inches below. Within minutes my yellow and blue had merged and miraculously made green! This led to more experimentation with every color, until there was a molten mess of brownish wax, which started to burn and smell. I was detained after to school, to think about what I had done. My conclusion after much reflection; Yellow and Blue make green, Yellow and Red make orange, Red and Blue make purple. This was an epiphany.

Another very early emotional association I have with color is flying box kites with my father and brothers. We would run the kites on brisk, bright fall or spring days. There was the excitement of the kite lifting off, and then the visual thrill of the bright colored geometric figure against a brilliant blue sky.

These are idyllic images, seemingly from another lifetime. My world, our world today, has lost much of the colored optimism I once knew. I would use the tired analogy of a world transformed into shades of gray, except that our government and corporate America are now painting the world green. Green is the new gray.
In 2001, the U.S. Department of Homeland security, issued a National terror alert on its website (www.nationalterroralert.com/saferoom/) The alert explains how to create a “safe room” in your home from biological agents, using duct tape as a first line of defense. That alert became the butt of late night comedians jokes, and forever changed the cultural consciousness about the sticky, silver gray tape.

Ironically (coincidentally?), a new duct tape craft phenomenon has been gaining ground in the year’s post 9/11, particularly among youths. Duct tape wallets, Duct tape purses, duct tape belts and duct tape Haute Couture. There is now a national competition for duct tape prom wear! The upside is a new abundance of colored tapes on the market. Silver gray is “so yesterday.”
My awareness of these new duct tape colors, the post 9/11 the collective consciousness and a corresponding movement of my own furniture design toward more and more two dimensional results, has coalesced into this current body of work. The optimism of these two dimensionally based illusions and the seduction of the material qualities, are undermined by the nagging reference to current world affairs, brought on by the unfortunate semiotic baggage of duct tape.

“Chromantic” is a word I have constructed, fabricated from the words chrome (color) and mantic, the ability to “see” or be prophetic or visionary. Much like the visions elucidated by a clairvoyant, they are not whole, they are missing bits of information, or the information itself may be ambiguous. Meaning in either context can be misinterpreted, misunderstood or misleading, but makes the experience no less meaningful.

David Fobes
September 2008

Link to Chromantic Exhibition, SimaySpace Gallery, Sept-Oct. 2008