ART IS NOT A CRIME

THE ELECTION POSTER FOR HOPE by Shepard Fairey

A creative leap for election posters and one that ended up in the Smithsonian!

WHAT'S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT!! First let me point out that this AP photo is not a good photo of candidate Obama, he is hunched over and looking quite bored. It took the eye of an artist to straighten up the shot, change the background and come up with a very creative yet simple color process that makes this "illustration" look heroic and arty enough to arouse the interest of a nation. I did not see many people wanting or buying a print of the AP photograph to hang in their houses or post on walls all around the nation.

The addition of the word HOPE is really where Shepard took it all to another level. Using his signature style "the big word at the bottom" like so many of his previous posters, Shepard made this a new "Image" and gave the nation a rallying call to all Democrats and Independents across the country.

Artists have appropriated images for use in their art for ages, the mere fact that Fairey has redrawn this image is change enough to take it away from the Photo copyright. If he would have used the tried and true "Warhollian" technique of adding color over a contrasty and grainy photo image of the photograph that could have been cause for concern. But what we have here is a redrawn, colored and fixed up new art piece, a painting. ART! Art is not a crime!

And then the AP goes and threatens to sue over a drawing of what they say is their copyrighted photo! Well last week I ran across another image of Obama and I'll be damned, it looks just like the AP Photo.... but it is not!

Taken by another photographer in another situation (check the background) but looking just like the original pose. I guess the second photographer must have copied the first AP photo. Or maybe Shepard used the second shot for his "artistic reference" to get the now famous and Heroic Leader pose so prevalent in the HOPE Poster! Take a look below and compare this with the AP Photo above!

Let me know what you think!

Late, theFunk