Obey Giant

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Shepard Fairey has

exploited a notion

that art can be anywhere

to compete with advertising,

so I don't consider it art.

Well, the guy is famous

for being a plagiarist.

It's vandalism.

Shepard Fairey is

pillaging the work

of important political

and cultural movements.

Shepard is a genius.

His artistic work overshadowed

by his alleged

criminal activity.

He employs cut and

paste as his artwork.

And at the end of the day,

it's a very empty experience.

I think he's our

generation's Warhol.

His work is too obvious.

He's reinvented

a political image

for today's world.

A wheatpaste artist is

not to be taken seriously.

The more famous he got

in the art world,

the less fans he had.

He created an icon.

From the very beginning when

he was doing Andre the Giant,

the joke was on the public.

It meant nothing.

Not only is Shepard

Fairey not an artist,

he's about the furthest

thing from art there is.

Things are not all

great in the world,

and it's not all the Carpenters

and love songs and Wings.

I grew up in the '70s,

and when I felt frustrated,

there was nothing

that seemed like

the creative analogue to that.

But when I discovered punk rock,

the Sex Pistols

talking about frustration,

the Clash talking

about frustration,

Black Flag, very angry music.

But they also

were not just angry

for the sake of being angry.

A lot of it was critiquing

the problem of conformity,

oppression,

corruption of power.

And all these things

connected with me

because I grew up

in a very, very conformist town

at a conformist school,

and I was--I was frustrated.

Everything that I felt

like wasn't being addressed

in other parts of the world

and other parts of my life,

punk rock addressed.

Skateboarding too.

Skateboarding was about

creative reuse of the landscape

that was intended

for other things,

and it's aggressive.

(grunting)

I was inspired by

bands putting up flyers.

I was inspired by graffiti.

Graffiti culture is

all about lettering

and putting your name up.

Colors, designs, style.

-Technical, advanced.

-Just get loose.

Get loose, and when they

see you got a vicious style,

they be wanting to get

loose about it, you know,

and that's what keep it going.

And that's what sparks graffiti.

Right.

The technique of graffiti,

people going out

and doing daring

locations anonymously,

and doing it for the sake

of saying, "I exist,"

I kind of loved that.

I'm looking for

the graffiti artists.

We are all graffiti artists.

Being from South Carolina

and watching movies

like Breakin'

and Beat Street,

my assumption ignorantly was

that I had to be black or Latino

and be in a crew

where I'd practice

in a black book

until some peer said

that I was ready

to hit the streets.

You know, it's like an art gang.

To me, street art is any art

that's done in public,

but what it's really about

is democratizing art,

making art accessible,

saying that there's room

for more in public space

than just commercial advertising

and government signage.

Where you get up,

how much you get up,

how daring the placement is,

and just the coverage,

that's everything,

especially pre-internet,

because the credit

you're getting

within that world

is based on people seeing

the different

examples firsthand.

Some giant posters.

Andre the Giant.

Here we have this week

on Piper's Pit, of course,

Andre the Giant,

supposedly the biggest

man in the world ever.

It's a pleasure to have you.

Where are you from, Andre?

I'm sorry, do you speak English?

Where--Andre,

where do you come from?

None of your business.

(crowd cheering)

The first thing I ever

did as my own street art

is the Andre the Giant

Has a Posse stickers.

I worked at a skate shop

the summer after my

freshman year at RISD,

and I was putting up

some of the stickers

of some of the brands I liked,

because I got the stickers

free at the store.

And I was trying

to teach a friend

how to make stencils,

so I looked through

the newspaper

and saw this picture

of Andre the Giant

and said, "Why don't you

make a stencil of this?"

He said, "No way, I'm not

gonna do that, it's stupid."

And I said, "What are

you talking about?

Andre's posse is taking over,"

which was just

a spontaneous joke.

We were listening

to a lot of hip hop--

Ice-T, Public Enemy,

the Beastie Boys, NWA--

and they all used

the word "posse."

I'm living large

as possible

Posse unstoppable

Style topical

It's vividly optical

Listen, you'll see 'em

sometimes I'll be 'em

Cops, critics, and punks

never ever want

to see me in power

And I made a few

stickers just as a joke.

Only a few friends

knew about it.

Put some up at some skate spots.

I had a fake ID so I put

some up in some clubs.

Put some on some street signs.

And then I noticed

that, you know,

I was out at a party

and I saw a guy

with one stuck to the front

of a plain baseball cap,

and I could see

paint chips at the edge,

so he'd clearly

peeled it off something

and stuck it to the hat.

And, you know, I asked,

"Hey, what's up with

that Andre thing?"

He was like,

"I don't know, you know,

I saw it on the street,

I thought it was fresh."

And I realized very quickly

that even though the

subject was totally silly

that it was spreading

in an underground,

mysterious way.

It impacted people.

What the hell do you

think you're doing?

And I knew that

when I'd seen things

like the Bob Dobbs

Church of the SubGenius,

the '50s guy with the pipe,

I was like, "What is that thing?

What's the story

behind that thing?

I want to know, I want to

get to the bottom of this."

I just had a feeling

that it would be

likeminded people

perpetuating it,

and I think that

that was the effect

that my Andre sticker

had on other people.

Not all of them.

There's a huge range

of reactions.

I remember seeing

somebody writing very small

in the negative space

in ballpoint pen on one:

"Nazi sh*t."

Any painter, any poet,

any musician sets a trap

for your attention.

That is the nature of art.

The great thing about

Andre the Giant Has a Posse

is that it somehow

doesn't have to mean anything

and it's still very cool.

It must be a cult,

it's deviant.

There's no--there's

no overt purpose.

By proclaiming this posse,

it was talking about

skate posses, right,

this idea that, like, you know,

kids form tribal communities

in music and art and

skateboarding, whatever.

But it was also

talking about how,

on a mass cultural level,

that we are unconsciously

aligning ourselves

with forces all the time.

This is my propaganda.

See, a lot of people

use models for propaganda.

You associate the product

with an attractive person,

and therefore that

makes it desirable.

I don't want to be as

straightforward as that.

One time I was in

the grocery store

behind a couple,

and the girl said,

"Hey, have you seen that

Andre the Giant sticker?"

And the guy's like,

"Yeah, I've seen that."

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