Obey

OBEY.
"Make Art, Not War," 2024.
Silkscreen.
Signed and dated.
Measurements: 91.5 x 61 cm.

This lithograph, created during the Iraq war, is an alternative phrase inspired by the popular anti-war mantra of the 1960s: "Make love, not war". In this case, Shepard Fairey (real name of alter ego Obey) vindicates the need for creative rather than destructive acts. The Art Nouveau style of the image is a further reference to Art Nouveau's influence on hippie and psychedelic art of the 1960s, including numerous anti-Vietnam War posters.

Wrapped in a floral garland, the female figure appears more self-assured than regal and ethereal. The placement of two paintbrushes beneath her portrait not only alludes to a classic tool of artistic production, but makes the message more direct.

Frank Shepard Fairey, OBEY, is an American urban artist and graphic designer, famous for the iconic "Hope" poster used by Barack Obama during his presidential campaign. His designs take elements from mid-20th century political propaganda poster art. Including slogans such as "Think and create, print and destroy", which mix the subversive with entertainment, his subject matter and aesthetics often come to be a mix between caricature and revival of political propaganda, Situationist ideas and the aesthetic-philosophical revolutions of the 1960s, thematic backgrounds very common in the art of the late 1990s and the beginning of the present century. His situation as an artist is controversial, maintaining works of graphic design and advertising with major brands on the one hand, and facing arrests in several countries for urban vandalism with his interventions, thus being a marked representative of the discussion on the role of the artist and his ideology in the present moment of the history of capitalist societies. He claims the public space as the main space for artistic and cultural life, proposing a critique of the aesthetic and presential hegemony of advertising, led by large financial corporations.