Shepard Fairey: Supply & Demand at Institute of Contemporary Art Boston on artrepublic.com

Stickers and posters of the artist’s work have appeared on street signs and buildings around the world as part of a guerrilla art campaign of global scale. Featuring over 80 works, Shepard Fairey: Supply & Demand traces the artist’s career over 20 years, from the Obey Giant stencil to screen prints of political revolutionaries and rock stars to recent mixed-media works and a new mural commissioned for the ICA show.  In complement to the exhibition, Fairey will be creating public art works at sites around Boston. 

Fairey gained international recognition in the early 1990s with his Obey Giant campaign, seen on streets around the world through the countless stickers and posters that Fairey produced and disseminated. Since then, Fairey has created works of art of all types – on the street, as part of commercial collaborations, and, increasingly, for gallery presentation. Fairey has broken many of the spoken and unspoken rules of contemporary art and culture. Working as a “fine” artist, commercial artist, graphic designer and businessman, Fairey actively resists categorization. Through the Obey project, he has created a cultural phenomenon, but more importantly, a new model of art making and production. He builds off precedents set by artists such as Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, as he disrupts expectations about art and business, and muddies the distinctions between fine art and commercial art.

Shepard Fairey: Supply and Demand features work in a wide variety of media – screen prints, stencils, stickers, rubylith illustrations, collages, and works on wood, metal and canvas. These works reflect the diversity of Fairey’s aesthetic, displaying a variety of influences and references such as Soviet propaganda, psychedelic rock posters, images of Americana, and the layering and weathering of street art. While his visually seductive imagery draws in his audience, Fairey uses his work as a platform to make statements on social issues important to him. The artist explains his driving motivation: "The real message behind most of my work is ‘question everything."

OPENING HOURS: Tue - Wed: 10.00 - 17.00, Thur & Fri: 10.00 - 21.00, Sat & Sun: 10.00 - 17.00

Image Credits:

Image 1:

Obey Revolution Girl, 2005, Mixed media silk screen on collage paper, hand painted multiple, 44 x 30 in., Courtesy of Obey Giant Art 

Mujer Fatal, 2008, Mixed media stencil collage on paper, 44 x 30 in., Collection of Tommy Love

Image 2:

Obey Andy Warhol Stencil, 2004, Mixed media stencil collage on paper, 44 x 30 in., Courtesy of Obey Giant Art

Guns and Roses Stencil, 2007, Retired stencil and collage on paper, 44 x 30 in., Courtesy of Chloe Gordon