In part one of our Shepard Fairey “May Day” opening coverage, we gave you an insider’s view on the opening festivities from Jeffery Deitch’s farewell show in New York. Now, it’s time to get to meat of our coverage – the art that Shepard created for this tremendous solo show. For fans that have been to the legendary gallery, the space is very imposing and would exhibit large scale pieces quite easily. To answer this challenge, Shepard created over 140 pieces to fill the walls of the gallery space. At the center of this body of work was four enormous floor-to-ceiling canvases which lined up to form the mural that we saw Shepard create on the famous spot on Houston and Bowery. In addition Shepard focused on creating a series of influential portraits on his sought after collaged canvases. We noticed that there were also large format stencil collages on HPM and on paper.
More photos after the jump.
As with every Shepard show, one could count on not only the diversity of mediums, but also on the artist’s attempt to get works in everyone’s hands. As mentioned over 140 works were made available and this was made possible because Shepard reached deep into the obey vaults to share many rare gems. Fans and collectors clamored to obtain unique retired stencils and elusive rubiliths. Shepard retired some famous stencils from the rotation, including the iconic “Andre-Hendrix”.
Surprising, rubies (rubilith) were also on display for this body of work. For the uninitiated, rubies are the source code of many stencils. Imagine a prototype drawing if you will, which is often used to form the ultimate stencil. Only one ruby is created and is always precision-cut by hand.
Rubilith of DOH 5
Without a doubt one of the cornerstone images of the show are the Obey Flags. As great as they looked on our preview, the flags were amazing to view in person. Each flag held a unique meaning based on their collage and colors.
Selim approves of the new flag
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- Rubilith of DOH 5
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- Selim approves of the new flag
