I was deeply saddened by the news that Shepard Fairey is losing his vision due to a lifelong battle with diabetes. According to reports he could be legally blind by the end of the year but his representatives are hopeful that he will be able to continue working.
This on the heels of a UCLA report in the LA Times linking "fast food neighborhoods" with obesity, heart disease and diabetes. Don't be fooled folks, this is a class issue. In what neighborhoods do you exclusively see fast food restaurants? While companies like Whole Foods (and don't even get me started on their role as a gentrifier) come into a community and establish health food as a luxury item, when it should have existed in the community in the first damn place, affordably.
Too many corporations, locally and abroad, exploit poor communities without returning anything. They get tax cuts while schools, health care and social services struggle because money's tied up in a war that is just getting oil companies richer. Meanwhile we're being told to shut up and buy stuff through more and more pervasive marketing campaigns. I'm sick and tired of this shit.
I'm not sure if I believe that Barack Obama is the one or anything ridiculous like that. But there's an undeniable feeling of a movement behind him. There's something that everybody behind him recognizes that they could each do and that's real. Because change doesn't just happen. We all have to speak up, blog or whatever, and struggle for it.
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Fairey started his career as a street artist with the "André the Giant Has a Posse" sticker campaign and grew to become an iconic voice of the disaffected masses with his omnipresent wheatpastings and the Obey Giant clothing. He often juxtaposes counterculture figures with a classic communist propaganda stylings to create a powerful political messages.
Fairey gained public notoriety recently with the "Progress" and "Hope" posters he designed for the Obama campaign, as well as album covers for Led Zepellin, Smashing Pumpkins and Black Eyed Peas. I personally love the subversive message that Fairey seemed to keep throughout his work.
His contribution to the Obama campaign is actually the first time I'd noticed sheer optimism in Fairey's art. In his own simple but distinct style, Fairey captures a complex and thoughtful Barack Obama. To me it was the next step for one of my favorite artists of our time.
*edit: Good news, Fairey "vehemently denied that he’s losing his vision" upon being contacted by Animal. He is open about his bout with diabetes and said that a bleed in his eye caused him to lose partial vision during a show in New York, but firmly stated that he can still paint and "do what [he] need(s) to do."
