Shepard Fairey, Obama, and ‘Hope’

"The jig is finally up" for Shepard Fairey says Charlotte Allen in the Los Angeles Times. The liberal artist has admitted to lying and faking evidence in his “fair use” fight with the AP, whose photo Fairey stole for his most famous work -- his Obama “Hope” poster. The truth is, the jig should have been up earlier, but the “fiercely liberal cultural and intellectual elite” stood by one of their own. Even President Obama said he was “privileged” and “proud” to be part of this street vandal’s art.

“You have to hand it to the right-wingers,” says Christopher Knight, also in the L.A. Times. They’ll use anything to "trash” President Obama, even if it makes them “look as dumb as a box of rocks.” Charlotte’s “incoherent screed” not only fails to link Obama to Fairey’s “deception,” it also uses just one tepid New Yorker review to prove lefty elites love Fairey—before then pivoting to quote another lefty artist to criticize him.

“The right’s delight,” says Mike Millard in The Boston Phoenix, is at having Obama’s “unofficial non-photographic White House photo” get tangled in a legal mess. But while “Fairey’s ill-advised skullduggery” probably won’t touch Obama, or Fairey’s “already shaky street cred,” it’s going to hurt all artists who have to step before judges, and it probably will keep Fairey’s work out of “fancy museums” for a while.

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