Shepard FAIREY (1970)

Real OG Oval Remix Project, 2007. Screen-printed skateboard. 79.5 x 20 cm. Includes stickers and "the real remix project". Note: Shepard Fairey, known as Obey, was born in 1970 in Charleston in the United States. He plunged into the world of graphic design at the age of 14, drawing images that would later be flocked onto t-shirts and skateboards. Influenced by the work of Andy Warhol and the Russian artist Alexander Rodchenko, he naturally went on to study art. At the end of the 1980s, Obey and a group of friends from the Rhode Island School of Design created a series of stickers and posters based on the wrestler André the Giant, which they secretly pasted onto the walls of American cities in their thousands. It was one of the first and most important ‘viral’ Street Art campaigns, demonstrating the striking power of this new form of clandestine expression. His work received international recognition during the 2008 US presidential campaign, with the creation of Barack Obama's HOPE poster, which became an iconic image of the campaign. The President personally thanked him for the influence his poster had during the presidential elections. The Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston considers him one of the best and most influential street artists of the moment. Despite this, although he is one of the pioneers of street art, his work is sometimes considered by the law to infringe artistic property. During some of his run-ins with the law, this did not prevent his exhibitions in various museums from doubling in attendance. Today, Shepard Fairey continues to use art as an artistic medium to engage with current social and political issues. In 2022, in collaboration with the Department of Art and Culture, he completed a 100-metre mural encouraging the use of renewable, less polluting energies in Munich.