This Profile is a bit different to the usual profiles
we have due to the fact that I interviewed Shepard Fairey on the phone
rather than the usual email interview. Below is the conversation that
we had. As you can see I did not need to ask Shepard much as he was
full of information and hardly needed me to prompt him with my questions.
This interview is also being published in IdN
magazine.
--
Andrew: How did Obey Giant start:
Shepard: I'll give you a little bit of a background. I always drew
when I was younger but I didn't really know what I was going to do with
it, and when I got older, when I was about 14, I started listening to
punk rock and skateboarding all the time. It was all I cared about.
With the skateboarding and punk rock there was a whole do it yourself
sort of mentality with graphics, t-shirts, stickers, pins and all sorts
of things like that. My Mom had a copier so I was into just making my
own stickers on the copier and Xeroxing my punk albums, skateboard logos
and doing paper cut stencils to make screen prints for t-shirts and
I would just run one or two off. So when I finally went to art school,
the Rhode Island School of Design, I was working in a skate shop. I
was the only employee during most of the week and I was the team manager
as well and I made stickers and t-shirts for the shop, called the Watershed,
and all the kids that skated in that part of Providence wanted to be
on the team. Team Shed. So I made stickers and stuff for that.
A: When and why did you use Andre the Giant?
S: One time a friend of mine was spending the night and he wanted
to learn how to make paper cut stencils. We found this ad for wrestling
and I told him that he had to use this image, that it was hilarious,
this Andre the Giant for his stencil. He didn't want to do it but I
thought it was cool so I took it and made it for him. I thought it was
funny so I ran off a bunch of stickers in Kinko's. It was supposed to
just be a joke between us. But I put a few around some skate spots in
Providence and gave them to some of the other guys from the Watershed
and told them Team Shed's done this is the new thing. It was just a
joke. Just a spoof on the whole skateboard clique that we had going.
It was only supposed to last a week or so but I started noticing that
people where really curious about what the stickers where about and
they where peeling them off things and putting them on their hats, or
their cars or skateboards or whatever. So I thought this thing has some
interesting power and the more stickers I put around the more people
wanted to know what it was. So I thought that was funny and kept putting
more of them around, it was pissing people off. The more that where
around the more people wanted to know what it was about and I wasn't
going to tell anybody. Only a few of my skate friends knew.
A: So it spread from there?
S: Yeah. It didn't take that long to conquer Providence, Rhode Island
either. After a while almost every stop sign had a sticker on it. Every
club had a sticker in it. So I thought, Boston is only an hour away
I should do this in Boston too. So the scope of my ambition grew. It
was just really fueled by the idea that you make something, put it around,
and when it doesn't have an obvious reason for existing, and no one
explains it people give it power by wanting to know. They start asking
each other and the word of mouth power doubles the actual power and
repetition of the images, and if you can get some sort of press in on
it, newspapers or magazines acknowledging it, the power is just that
much more. So the idea of exploiting this experiential growth of something
by having it be mysterious and having it spread in a way that seems
subversive, I got really excited by that. The idea that I was doing
something that people noticed but they didn't realise it was me. It
was sneaky and a way for me to do something that got out there and got
me some recognition but I could still remain anonymous in some sense.
But it made me feel good that something I did people where seeing and
asking about it. I liked the idea that if no one knew who was doing
it then it was going to reflect purely the item itself as opposed to
the artist.
A: do you see the Internet as in important part of the Obey Giant movement
or just as a resource for people to learn about what you do?
S: For me the internet is safe, it's a safe environment to explore
and that's why a lot of people like it so much. It's not real. I'm about
the fear. The heartbeat increase. The arm hairs standing up. The encounter
with things on the street whether it's people or the idea of some residue
from a person that actually has a tactile presence. That's why I like
the street stuff. Texture. If you look at a lot of my new work, a lot
of it addresses the way it actually looks on the street. Because I love
the way the work interacts once it's out on the street. People are cruising
through this urban environment and the things very deliberately placed
in a way that they come across it in their path. Some people have a
really violent reaction to it. They hate it, they think it's a cult
or something. They scratch at my posters or stickers with keys. Scratch
the eyes out and write 'dis' in front of 'obey', like disobey or they
write fuck off or whatever. I get some hate email too. For me at least
the webs just not quite the same. If I need to find out information
or a reference for a graphic it's really convenient to be able to get
on the net. But aside from that I don't really use it. I would rather
go skateboarding, or go bombing, or hang out with my girlfriend. Do
things that are maybe a little more visceral. Fucking shit up on the
street. Having to run from the cops, deal with gang members and vigilante
citizens. The real world. I get a rush out of the risk. The actual risk.
A: Do you still get the same rush from it as you used to?
S: I still get a rush out of it. The only thing is there are certain
cities I go to and I've done stuff in them ton's of times. It's sort
of like, how many times am I going to stencil the same lamp post. New
York's an exciting place to do stuff but I need to take it the next
level every time I go to a place. I'm always making new images, I'm
always trying to go bigger, get more creative, do different things.
It could get boring if I didn't always do that but I'm always trying
to make it better and bigger. If I'm in a city and I see open good spaces
it doesn't matter whether I have something cool to go to two blocks
away I just have to get that spot. It becomes an obsession. I have to
do it. I judge my worth by output. Tangible output. I'm always measuring
the success of what I'm doing by output. It might become a problem when
I want to settle down and just chill out. I might have trouble.
Thanks Shepard!