Obama Has a Posse
An endorsement from an artist might seem insignificant in a presidential campaign, but Barack Obama recently scored an unusual ally in Shepard Fairey, a young graff artist whose sticker and poster art have catapulted him to celebrity status in urban art culture.
Earlier this week, Fairey put a limited edition poster for sale on his website bearing Obama's face and the word "Progress." The 350 copies sold out within an hour. The proceeds, Fairey explained, would go to a larger postering campaign.
Fairey rose to fame via his "Obey Giant campaign," a simple, black-and-white sticker that turned the face of Andre the Giant into an Orwellian set of eyes labeled with the word "obey." His followers soon spread the image, pasting it on street signs and walls across the country. Now the sticker is omnipresent in American cities. Fairey says the purpose of the Obey Giant project was to spread "propaganda for which the motive was not obvious" as a thought-provoking experiment.
Be sure to check out Bad Monkey Designs' tribute to the Obey campaign on our website.