And, no surprise, OBAMA LIKES IT!
Graffiti art takes presidential race to the streets
Artists including Shepard Fairey and Ray Noland head to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, home of MoveOn.org's Manifest Hope Gallery Contest.
By Kate Linthicum
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 23, 2008
ON A brick wall in downtown Atlanta that usually is splattered with graffiti tag names, a spray-paint portrait of Barack Obama now gazes over the streetscape.
In Chicago, an abandoned warehouse on the city's South Side displays a life-size silhouette of the Illinois senator, microphone in hand.
And all over Los Angeles -- on stop signs, underpasses, buildings and billboards -- hundreds of posters and stickers of Obama, emblazoned with the word "Hope," have been slapped up, guerrilla-style.
This year, some of the most arresting images in the race for the White House are not the work of ad agencies, political consultants or photojournalists but of a subculture of artists who use the streets as their canvas. Their pro-Obama work -- there is no similar phenomenon for John McCain -- has been spotted everywhere, even Paris and Beijing.
It's an odd twist in the world of street art, an arena where creative renegades question power and convention with their homemade posters and hand-painted murals -- and don't usually endorse major party politicians.
"It's not cool with the sort of rebellious, punk, street-artist types to support something that is seen as a part of the system," said Shepard Fairey, the Los Angeles-based street artist responsible for the "Hope" posters and stickers.
Coming together
Yet when it comes to Obama, street artists around the country are falling into line. "Obama's a rock star, he's got a great brand and he's a very sexy candidate," explained Ian Bourland, a University of Chicago graduate student who is one of the few academics studying recent street art. "It's his race, his politics and his charisma."
Street artists embrace the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee's experience as a community organizer, in part because they view their own movement as similarly grass-roots. "He's perceived as sharing their ethos," Bourland said.
Fairey and Chicago artist Ray Noland plan to be in Denver next week for the Democratic National Convention. Noland will be hawking his paintings and posters and Fairey will be there as a judge in the Manifest Hope Gallery Contest, a national art competition he is sponsoring with MoveOn.org. Artists from around the country were asked to submit work about Obama or centered around the themes of hope, progress, change, patriotism or unity. The best works will be displayed at the Manifest Hope Gallery, which will be set up in downtown Denver.
Controversial approach
Street art -- regarded as creative, non-gang graffiti by its admirers and as vandalism by its detractors -- evolved in part out of the do-it-yourself punk movement of the 1980s.
Current targets of its rebellious edge include the Iraq war and gentrification, along with old enemies such as capitalism. "It's pretty unusual to find things that street artists and graffiti artists are in support of," said Joe Austin, a University of Wisconsin history professor who studies youth movements.
Still, street artists such as San Francisco's Eddie (he asked that his last name not be used for fear of legal retribution) are enthusiastic about Obama, and they say they are expressing their sentiments in the vocabulary they know best.
"I could go and volunteer at the campaign and make calls, but that's probably not the best use of my skill set," said Eddie, who has plastered the Bay Area with red-and-black posters that feature a close-up of the candidate's face. "Street art is what I do."
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