Wednesday, February 04, 2009

The Future Is Unridden...

...but not for long.

Joe Strummer of The Clash fame: hand-drawn (colored in Photoshop) take-off on the Shepherd Fairey "Obama Hope" image. Still needs a bit of work.

From an original photograph (or film still) owned by IFC Entertainment, LLC. If you haven't seen The Future Is Unwritten, well, you should see it.

Artistic efforts fueled by sardines, pizza, and a mix of Bell's Hopslam IPA and Sierra Nevada's surprisingly tasty Torpedo Extra IPA. Sadly, oysters on the H.S. were somehow left out of the mix...and it shows. Ah, well...

16 comments:

gmr2048 said...

Be careful from whence you borrow your source image. Shepherd is in the crosshairs.

http://is.gd/ir4A

Blue-eyed Devil said...

Yeah, I know about that; have known for a while. Don't get me started (ah, hell, here we go...). Fairey is profiting from his theft; mine is for personal use. I don't hold him in very high regard, as he lifts art verbatim--thus incorporating the original work into his commercial designs--without so much as mentioning the original (real) artist. It wouldn't be quite as bad if he used the original works simply as models, but instead he lifts them out of their original (typically politically-charged and thus meaningful) context, then adds some filigree around the margins, along with a banal revolutionary word or phrase which, of course, pisses down the meaning of said original artwork and revolutionary word/phrase in what I imagine he's trying to pass off as irony. THEN he copyrights the shit.

FWIW, I tried to determine the source of the photo from which I made my drawing. I think it was simply a still from the flick. Oh, and my art isn't good enough to piss off anyone anyway, ha. I chose the Fairey motif precisely because of his SOP.

Todd said...

Man, I hope they don't a hold of Butch's spoke cards. ;-)

BTW, looks good.

F.W. Adams said...

Hey, that's nice, but your fuel, man, your fuel! ;o)

Peace!

gmr2048 said...

Interesting goings on regarding this whole deal. Seems the photog who shot the image is claiming that *he*, not the AP, owns the image and he doesn't want to tussle with Fairey or the AP. The AP is still asserting ownership. Lawyers coming soon...

http://is.gd/iy0K

gmr2048 said...

I should have made that link hot. Sorry. Here's a link to the story.

riderx said...

That photographer needs to grow a set of nuts. Geez, "subvert the presidency"? Give me a break.

buchetti said...

While I don't agree with what Shep does as far as going counter his anti capitalistic point of view by peddling clothes, it doesn't make him any less an artist than Warhol, Chuck D, or Jimmy Page. Check out pop artist Roy Lichenstein. Art evolves from existing art.
Todd - the choco stout spoke cards I made were all given away, not sold for profit.

Blue-eyed Devil said...

Butch, you're missing the point. Roy Lichtenstein borrowed an idea--comic book pop art--and did his own interpretation of it. He borrowed images and distorted them in some way, changing scale or colors or whatever. And yes, Page stole from Blues artists, but at least he reinterpreted their works and actually played the guitar himself. Fairey, on the other hand, lifts the works verbatim via cut-and-past techniques, then places frivolous shit around them. It's the same as me copying a photo of yours, putting some lame word under it like "cool", claiming it as my own art, then selling it. Evolution, as you put it, is not the same thing as cloning. Lichetenstein, et al, evolve art, Fairey merely clones it. There's a difference, and it means everything.

Actually, Fairey's purloining of a photographic image he neither owns nor has permission to use in order to create "his" art is identical to the situation Gary went through recently, whereby Bicycling magazine commissioned an artist for a sketch, who then "sketched" Gary's photo--without permission--using Photoshop filters and was paid for it by the magazine. Gary rightly challenged them and they made good on it--an act that is tantamount to a tacit admission of guilt. If you're okay with Fairey's appropriation, then you should be okay with the Bicycling fuck's appropriation of Gary's photograph...can't have it both ways.

And apparently Fairey himself isn't keen on people "borrowing" his work.

gmr2048 said...

Nice! A hypocrite asshat, as opposed to plain ol' asshat.

gmr2048 said...

The AP vs. Fairey argument is getting some boingboing discussion time. To see their (pro Fairey) arguments, as well as comments from the unwashed masses, check it.

riderx said...

Cease and desist!

gwadzilla said...

after you dropped me on the hill I moved to flatter terrain

zipped out the airport and back

then over the 14th Street Bridge right in front of the Jefferson (as seen in the post bellow) I ran into a crew of OUTLAWS

RickyD leading the charge

Blue-eyed Devil said...

Ah, sorry, man, I have to lay it down on that climb with the fixie...like to get the mo' and keep it moving.

Was gonna buy you a beer in Clarendon...oh well, next time. Good seeing you.

Cycle Jerk said...

It's hard to find an artist who isn't "borrowing" from another artist, political movement or cultural trend of some kind. That said it becomes something else when profit is involved.

Any post that mentions Joe Strummer and Bells's Hopslam is a good one in my book.

If you haven't seen it check out "Lets Rock Again" a documentary on Strummer as he tried to get the Mescaleros off the ground.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0415935/

Unknown said...

Ahh, the whose art is whose argument started to lose me, but I will tell you this: If I could listen to only one thing for the rest of my life it would very likely be Joe Strummer.

I had the most incredible Joe Strummer dream not too long ago. Perhaps I'll blog about it.

Side note and completely unrelated: Not only is there no practical why to shake the funk off the bottom of the Kombucha, I suggest that you never toss an opened bottle in the basket on the front of your bike then jump a few curbs. Not that you have a basket on your bike...