Studio Visits: Shepard Fairey – “Obama Campaign”

In anticipation of Shepard Fairey’s upcoming retrospective at the Andy Warhol Musueum in October, we thought it would be appropriate to dip into our vault and give you a little gem we’ve been saving for the perfect time. Last November, AM had the pleasure of visiting Shepard Fairey’s Obey/Studio Number One/Subliminal Projects headquarters in Los Angeles a few days after Barack Obama won the presidential election. You would think that Shepard and his crew would be taking a breather and enjoying the fruits of their labor. Quite the contrary, it was business as usual at the studio. When we asked Shepard: “What’s the next chapter now that Obama won the election?” He responded: “This isn’t over. The party has only begun. Everyone’s late to this party. You wouldn’t believe how many people want in after Obama won.”

First order of business that morning was a conference call with the editor of Time Magazine. They just named President-Elect Barack Obama as Person of the Year and naturally, they want the man behind the famous image to do the cover! The next thing we saw was the special release of the iconic “HOPE” pasters for which all profits would be donated to the ACLU and overturning Prop 8. It was pretty amazing watching Shepard literally take over an hour to hand sign each and every HOPE.

More after the jump.

We were greeted by Shepard in his “office”, a gallery type room which he shares with his assistants. It’s hard not to be inspired when the walls are filled with great art from artists such as: Andy Warhol, Barry McGee, Banksy, Richard Pettibon and Kaws to name a few.

Here was the Obey Print “Vault.” Never before have we seen so many silkscreened gems stored in one place.

After lunch, we were schooled in the fine art of Rubilith creating, stencil cutting and utilization.

Then we got a little sneak preview of what’s in store for 2009.

Discuss Shepard Fairey here.