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OBEY GIANT
Shepard Fairey est né et a grandi à Charleston (Caroline du Sud), son père est médecin.
Il s'est plongé dans l'art en 1984 à l'âge de 14 ans et a commencé à dessiner pour des t-shirts et des skateboards.
He graduated from Wando High School in 1988. While attending the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 1989, he created the "André the Giant Has a Posse" sticker campaign, which led to the "Obey Giant" campaign. The campaign became, in Fairey's words, "an experiment in phenomenology."
He received his RISD diploma in 1992 with a Master of Arts in Illustration, and currently resides in Los Angeles, California, with his wife Amanda and daughters Vivienne and Madeline.
Using the slogan "The Medium is the Message" borrowed from Marshall McLuhan, Fairey became one of the best-known artists of the 2000s. Originally part of the graphic design group BLK/MRKT with other graphic designers and artist Dave Kinsey, Fairey left in 2003 and joined Studio Number One.
In 2004, Fairey, Robbie Conal and Mear One created, for the Post Gen collective, a series of "anti-war, anti-Bush" posters for a Street art campaign entitled "Be the Revolution".
His work is featured in the collections of the Smithsonian, the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
His first museum retrospective, Supply & Demand (named after his book), opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, from February 6 to August 16, 2009.
He nevertheless continued his graffiti activities, which led to another arrest in February 2009.
Fairey also DJs in many clubs under the names DJ Diabetic and Emcee Insulin, because he is diabetic.
Shepard Fairey constantly skirts the edge of legality. Having caught up with the law multiple times, he has had to justify himself in court more than a dozen times. Sometimes it's for graffiti on walls, sometimes for using an image without permission—like the one of Barack Obama, for which the photographer wasn't credited. His arrests haven't prevented Shepard Fairey from remaining popular in the United States. During some of his legal troubles, his exhibitions in various museums have seen a doubling of attendance.
PAST EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION):
2023: Retrospective of his works, Former Guimet Museum in Lyon
2021: "Shepard Fairey - Obey", Contemporary Art Space in Annecy
2019 : "Urban Conquest, Street Art", Calais Museum of Fine Arts
2017-2018: "Maquis-art Hall of Fame", L'Aérosol Graffiti Museum in Paris
2009: “Supply & Demand”, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
