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About
Frank Shepard Fairey was born February 15, 1970 in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. Fairey's adolescence was shaped by the influences of punk-rock and skateboarding. In his teens, he began creating his own bootlegged clothing and skateboard decals featuring bands and brands he liked. Fairey’s early bootlegs were created because his generally conservative parents would not purchase the clothing he wanted. In 1986, he stumbled upon the Andre the Giant image for which he has become famous for, in a local newspaper. The image was selected when Fairey demonstrated to a friend how to make a stencil; it was modified slightly to include the meaningless caption “Andre the Giant has a Posse” and made into a sticker. The sticker was reproduced en masse and began to appear around Charleston as it spread through the skateboarding community. While the sticker had no inherent meaning, the public response varied from disregard to curiosity to out-right fear. Civic groups editorialized and theorized that the Andre image was affiliated with everything from a band to a hate group. Nevertheless, the stickers were considered vandalism and in time, Fairey would face numerous charges for defacing public property. Fairey's record includes 13 arrests as of October 2007 for defacing property as a result of his so called bombing campaigns. Fairey affixed the stickers on municipal properties nearly everywhere he went, and the Andre sticker was being seen in Boston and New York City, soon others procured the image and were encouraged to spread the campaign worldwide in the form of stickers, stencils and wheat-paste posters. Following high school, Fairey was accepted to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where, with an interest in screen printing, he majored in illustration. In 1992, while still attending RISD, Fairey started Alternate Graphics, a mail order catalog business through which he could merchandise his own t-shirts, skateboards, posters and stickers. He also took small commercial illustration jobs to help supplement his income. Shortly thereafter, the Andre the Giant Has a Posse logo was shortened simply to Obey Giant. The Obey, for which Fairey has also become synonymous, is derived from the 1988 John Carpenter film They Live. In the film, aliens who appear as human, rule the governments and economies of the world while the humans are reduced to an unwitting, hypnotized slave-class. Themes from the film continue to appear in Fairey’s work. Over time, the Andre the Giant face was modified into a more simplified and streamlined appearance, reminiscent of Russian Constructivist style Soviet propaganda posters of the 20th Century. In 1994, filmmaker Helen Stickler featured Fairey and his sticker phenomenon in her documentary: Andre the Giant has a Posse. The following year, Fairey started Subliminal Projects with the late Blaize Blouin, his friend and pro-skateboarder. Subliminal Projects created and released several Obey-Giant themed posters and skateboard decks. Fairey directed a short skateboarding film featuring some of his friends through Subliminal Projects and Alternate Graphics titled A.D.D.(Attention Deficit Disorder). In 1996, Fairey moved to San Diego, California to create Giant Distribution with partner Andy Howell. Later, with Howell, Phillip De Wolff, Dave Kinsey, he formed First Bureau of Imagery (FBI), a branding, marketing and design firm established to focus on the increasingly lucrative sports market. FBI was closed in 1999 and Fairey, along with De Wolff and Kinsey created BLK/MRKT, similar to FBI. At this time, Fairey met and began working with Amanda Alaya, who he would later marry. BLK/MRKT moved to Los Angeles in 2001. Here, they could expand and were able to incorporate a small gallery. Fairey and Kinsey eventually bought out De Wolff’s share of the partnership and by then had set up offices in the Pellissier Building (home of the historic Wiltern Theater), in the Koreatown section of Downtown Los Angeles. In December 2001, Fairey and Alaya were married in Charleston, South Carolina, Amanda has occaisionally been the model for Fairey's prints. Additionally, Amanda Fairey works in the capacity as publicist, agent and representative of her husband. In 2003, Kinsey and Fairey split. Kinsey retained the BLK/MRKT name and gallery, which he relocated to Culver City, California. Fairey retained the offices and most of the employees to create Studio Number One and the gallery was renamed Subliminal Projects. Studio No. 1 has since gone on to produce numerous memorable album covers, concert and film posters. In 2004, Fairey created the magazine Swindle with his old friend Roger Gastman. Swindle is a quarterly publication that features fashion, art, music and other pop-culture elements. During the 2004 presidential election, Fairey teamed up with artists Mear One and Robbie Conal to create a series of anti-Bush/anti-war posters for the street-art campaign: Be The Revolution. In 2005, Fairey accepted a residency at the Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he created murals and prints that reveal a dramatic combination of constructivist style with distinctly traditional Hawaiian themes and influences. Amanda Fairey gave birth to the couple’s first child, Vivienne in June 2005, she is the namesake of punk fashion legend Vivienne Westwood. Fairey's street-art, was featured with that of Dan Witz, Banksy, Faile, D*Face, Bast, Kelly Burns and others in a feature article titled Art of the Street from the October 24, 2005 issue of Time Magazine. Fairey’s 2006 release of his book, Supply and Demand, (Ginko Press) is the first extensive chronicle of Fairey’s work. The book focuses on his early experiences with graphics and the philosophy behind his idea/manifesto of Phenomenology as well as many of his early prints and the stories behind their inspiration. The Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California, hosted Fairey as well as Joshua Davis, Phunk Studio, Michael C. Place, Michael Muller, The Mill and Matt and Mark Owens on September 7, 2007; where these important designers, artists, photographers and film makers lectured about their most recent works and their creative processes. Fairey's solo show One Man Army, opened on September 14, 2007, at the Toyroom Gallery in Sacramento, California. On November 1, 2007, Fairey's work appeared in the solo show Ninteeneigthyforia, his largest show to-date, at the massive Stolen Space Gallery in London, UK. The show was extensively promoted throughout London with pasters and murals,and media outlets, which have exponentially increased Fairey's exposure and popularity internationally. Fairey is diabetic and requires insulin, he frequently works as a Disc Jockey under the name DJ Diabetic at clubs. In recent years this condition has caused Fairey limited mobility and even at least one reported instance of temporary blindness. On January 31, 2008, Fairey and his wife celebrated the birth of their second child, daughter Madeline Fairey. Recently, Fairey has put much of his artistic energy into politics by creating and promoting a series of prints that support 2008 Presidential Candidate Barack Obama. Fairey is a sitting member of the advisory board of a non-profit organization that provides art supplies to disadvantaged schools and students called Reaching to Embrace the Arts. In February-March of 2008, STUDIO NUMBER ONE moved into its current location in an historic building at 1331 West Sunset Boulevard in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. This facility houses the Studio Number One(SNO) offices, Subliminal Projects, Obey Giant Art, as well as Swindle Magazine. Fairey has defended his corporate commercial work by reminding critics who accuse him of selling out that the revenues he earns through such work, afford him the opportunity to advance not only his own art and philosophy, but help him to promote other emerging artists through Swindle Magazine and his gallery. Contact
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