Shepard Fairey — who created the iconic “Hope” poster for Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign — has lost hope, but he doesn’t blame the president.
“My frustrations with Obama are mostly symptomatic of the dysfunction of the system itself,” Fairey told me at the Dream Hotel, where he was celebrating the opening of his show “On Their Hands” at the Jacob Lewis Gallery.
“There’s a massive amount of cooperation that needs to happen for anything to be accomplished,” the artist said. Citing “the legal bribery” of campaign financing and “partisan bickering,” Fairey said “any president would be handicapped.”
Asked to describe his first New York show of paintings in five years, the Charleston, S.C., native said, “I’m like a broken record with my themes. It’s opposing environmental destruction, making people aware of climate change, opposing the abuse of authority . . .”
Fairey said the show he did last year with Jasper Johns was called “Power and Glory” because it asked: “Whose power? Whose glory? Who gets the American dream, and who doesn’t?”
As for the state of the art world, Fairey deplores the way dealers “get the artist to make valuable trophies for rich people to put into their homes.” Fairey makes prints at lower costs for a most “inclusive” model.
“I’m grateful that anyone cares about art,” Fairey said. “I’m grateful that I have an outlet for my work.”
