Obey Giant Page #10

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contacted you earlier,

but I apologize.

I want to make it right."

I think as he got to know me

a little more and understand

that I was never doing

it for personal gain,

that even getting

recognition out of it

was not something I

expected or was going for,

and, you know,

we bonded over the stress

that we'd both gone through.

Well, we were just about

to hash it out in court

and I swear,

the AP was like,

"Oh, we wanna settle."

The Associated Press

should have,

and probably was, worried

because this is

the kind of case

that, particularly

if decided on appeal,

would disadvantage

them in negotiations

with artists of all sorts.

So from their standpoint,

getting a significant

sum of money from Shepard

and not getting a final judgment

was the goal.

Shep made agreements

with the AP,

the AP had to make agreements

and settlements with me,

and so it took a while

and it was painful.

I asked my lawyers,

"How much money do you

think went into this

before we got to this point

where it's I can

go in my direction,

Shep goes in his direction,

and the AP goes

in their direction?"

And they estimated it

somewhere around $15 million.

And most of that money was

spent by The Associated Press.

Lawyers.

Lawyers.

It never got to the point

where it went to court

where a judge

could make a decision

on whether it was

fair use or not.

Had the case proceeded all

the way through to the end,

I'm quite confident

Shepard would have won.

You may never recognize

me on the street,

you might recognize

Shepard Fairey.

But I'm the guy

that made the image

that this guy

made the poster

to elect the first

black president.

And, uh, it's still cool.

I'm still good with it.

I don't have any issues.

It was humiliating.

It was something I was

really, really ashamed of.

and it's, you know,

who knows how long it'll be,

you know, an albatross

around my neck

as far as public

perception goes,

but it's gonna be something

that is gonna haunt me forever.

When that all

was finally over,

I moved on the way

I almost always move on

from things that are stressful,

I just do more work.

Work's good therapy for me.

I had seen one

of the museum shows

and was very impressed

by the portraits.

They were way

beyond what we knew

from the Obama portrait,

and I thought

that Shepard Fairey

is one of the most

original, insightful

portrait artists alive today.

I'd been asked

by Jeffrey Deitch,

who was the gallerist

that I most looked up to

and admired for his

program at his gallery,

Deitch Projects in New York,

to do a show.

I proposed

a particular theme to him:

a portrait of America.

Portraits of

underground heroes

and some of our

political heroes.

Having a show to work toward

gave me something to

really put my energy into.

All of my frustrations

about things going on

socially and politically

and just my own

frustration with myself.

It took at least

a year to create

this phenomenal

gallery of portraits.

This was the show that

I eventually decided

to title "May Day."

I had a lot of fears that

showing at Deitch Projects,

which is a gallery that

is taken very seriously

by the art world,

that it would be a little bit

out of my comfort zone.

I knew that there would be

a lot of people hoping

that I would not

make a strong show

so they could say that all the

hype around the "Hope" poster

had been a one-hit wonder,

that I was not to be taken

seriously as an artist.

And I felt a lot of pressure

to prove otherwise.

The morning of the opening,

they began lining up very--

like seven in the morning,

and then when we

opened the full show,

there were so many people there

the street was

basically shut down.

You know, I'm very,

very fortunate

my artwork's known

to a lot of people.

I have a successful art career,

I have a successful

clothing line

which has been, you know,

an amazing source of income

for me to do things that I never

could have done otherwise.

Now, I have

the kind of resources

to put money into things

that I care about.

People don't know that he does

a lot of the stuff for free.

Marriage equality,

Citizens United,

money in politics,

the criminal justice system

and mass incarceration,

climate change.

It was easy for me

when I was younger,

and I'm just doing

a few stickers and stencils,

to say, "This is really

good for what it is."

But when you get to the scale

of the Eiffel Tower,

you better make it count.

The Paris Climate Conference

unites leaders,

government officials,

scientists,

and influential speakers

from around the world

to promote global action

for addressing climate change.

This will mean establishing

what individual countries

will do to control

greenhouse gas emissions

and providing financial

support where needed.

I created a globe

that was suspended

between the first and second

tiers of the tower.

You could see

a mandala from beneath,

you could see floral imagery,

and then woven in

were different images

about the environment,

some championing green energy

and some cautioning our

reliance on fossil fuels.

What I found out

was that no artist

had ever done

a three-dimensional installation

at the Eiffel Tower.

I'm the first artist

in history to do it.

That's really incredible for me.

To have the entertainment value

and the spectacle

and serious content

all come together,

that's rare.

It was something that I was

proud of aesthetically.

It said what I wanted to say

and it was getting attention

in a really amazing place.

I think the idea that

art can become a symbol

or a starting point

for conversation is--

you know, that's exciting,

and sure, there are

a number of people

who care about policy

that were probably gonna be

engaged in the climate change

conversation anyway...

Thank you.

Thank you, sir,

all right.

...but if the art

lured some people

that wouldn't have been

into that conversation,

that's very valuable to me.

And we have our first

projections of the night.

Take a look at this.

Donald Trump, folks,

we project,

will win in Kentucky.

He's gonna have

to win someplace

we didn't think

he was gonna win.

Donald Trump will win the state

of Ohio, a big one here.

This is a dramatic,

very stunning event.

Donald Trump has won

the state of Pennsylvania.

Donald Trump will win

the state of Florida.

The most surreal election

we have ever seen.

(crowd chanting "USA!")

My need to make my work topical,

it comes from everything

that I've been into in my life

that's made my life

feel meaningful.

Now I'm trying to find ways

to take a lot of my frustrations

and my impulses and channel

them in a constructive way.

And using my art

to say something

is the most constructive

way I can think of.

We want to take you to D. C.

We have been monitoring

the Women's March

coming out of Washington.

It's expected to be the biggest

inauguration protest

in U. S. history.

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