Shepard Fairey

Latest Articles

Andre returns to College Hill

Propaganda Dept.
If you found yourself on Benefit Street this past Monday, you could have been forgiven for wondering if Providence's own rascal king had made a stunning return to politics: there, behind the First Baptist Church, was a large "Re-Elect Cianci" billboard.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | February 15, 2012

Cai Guo-Qiang, “Sustainable Beauty,” and “Independents”

Quick impressions
Cai Guo-Qiang has mounted his two big crocodiles at head height, where you can peer into their snapped open jaws lined with fangs.
By GREG COOK | October 25, 2011

Review: JustSeeds' ''Resourced!'' focuses on ecology at AS220

The art of protest
The political printmaking group JustSeeds was begun by Josh MacPhee in Portland, Oregon, in 1998 as a way to distribute art and posters.
By GREG COOK | May 17, 2011

By | January 01, 0001

Cambridge author Caleb Neelon traces graffiti's hidden history

It was written
'TAKI 183' SPAWNS PEN PALS, announced the headline in the July 21, 1971, New York Times .
By GREG COOK | April 04, 2011

Review: The eye-popping vitality of 'Printed in Providence'

Lasting impressions
Providence printmaking continues to be the primary representative of the city's art in books from Street World (2007) to Paper Politics: Socially Engaged Printmaking Today (2009) to the Museum of Modern Art's Modern Women (2010). It's a printmaking of posters and zines, do-it-yourself art often operating underground, on the streets, outside the usual institutions.
By GREG COOK | February 23, 2011

Review: 'Networks 2009-2010' at the Newport Art Museum

A 'community of makers'
In art communities like Providence, local institutions often ignore their town's history. Which can convey the message that little art made here ever mattered. And the corollary: Little made here ever will matter. Which is, of course, silly in the town of Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, Shepard Fairey, Kara Walker, Fort Thunder, and Dirt Palace.
By GREG COOK | November 24, 2010

AS220's Fairey mural in progress in Providence

The Art of the City
It's a muggy Wednesday and Johan Bjurman stands atop an 85-foot aerial lift along Aborn Street in downtown Providence, a paintbrush in his hand and a thermos of ice water at his side.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | August 04, 2010

With plans for a downtown mural, Shepard Fairey returns to Providence

Obey
It is a rather unremarkable collection of bricks at the moment: an exterior wall at the back of Trinity Repertory Company’s Pell Chafee Performance Center in downtown Providence.
By DAVID SCHARFENBERG | June 16, 2010

Meme police

MIT’s ROFLcon, a gathering of the Web’s biggest names, decides what will make you laugh and cry.
I just woke up from some sort of bizarre dream. I was at MIT. There was a weirdo painting nudes of President Obama on a unicorn. Several adults were dressed like domestic animals.
By CHRIS FARAONE | May 05, 2010

Review: Exit Through the Gift Shop

Banksy makes his directorial debut. Or does he?
The art of underground prankster Banksy is hard to pin down.
By BRETT MICHEL | February 24, 2011

2009: The year in art

Saints, sinners, paint
The year started off with a kick in the teeth when, in January, Brandeis University announced plans to shutter its Rose Art Museum and sell off its masterpieces.
By GREG COOK | December 30, 2009

Video: Our 10 most popular videos from 2009

Hardcore bands, porn stars, vampires, zombies, and vandals
The most popular videos from the Phoenix in 2009
By BOSTON PHOENIX STAFF | December 28, 2009

Alternative universe

Boston Expressionism in context
In the 1930s and '40s, Boston painters developed a moody, mythic realism. They mixed social satire with depictions of street scenes, Biblical scenes, and mystical symbolic narratives, all of it darkened by the shadow of the Great Depression and World War II.
By GREG COOK | December 16, 2009

Providence Fall Preview Listings 2009

Music, theater, art, festivals and more in the coming months
A page of listings for local music, theater, art, festivals and more this fall.
By PHOENIX STAFF | September 17, 2009

By | January 01, 0001

Review: Shepard Fairey + Z-Trip + Chuck D

“Experiment Redux” | Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston | July 31, 2009
So Shepard Fairey actually made it this time. No insane, last-minute sting operations by Boston cops lurking just off the ICA’s property line. But also: no grand dramatics, either. (Like, he totally could have parachuted through a shattered skylight. In slow motion.) Fairey just showed up and did his thing.
By NICK CURRAN AND ADDISON POST | August 11, 2009

Comic-strip author declares war on Jamba

Juice justice
While the Shepard Fairey–AP showdown was busy raising the public-domain bar, a new case concerning intellectual property recently cropped up on the Internet. This one pits David Rees and his defunct Get Your War On ( GYWO ) comic strip against national smoothie giant Jamba Juice.
By LEOR GALIL | August 05, 2009

Photos: Shepard Fairey, Z-Trip, Chuck D at the ICA

Shepard Fairey, Z-Trip, and Chuck D, live at the Institute of Contemporary Art, on July 31, 2009
Shepard Fairey spins at Obey Experiment REDUX at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston
By MELISSA OSTROW AND ALEX SLATER | August 05, 2009

Stop the presses

Fine art and funhouse tricks from AS220's Print Shop
Meg Turner steals the show in 5 Traverse gallery's new exhibit with her installation Santa's Worst Nightmare . Climb up a few stairs, step into a closet-sized box wallpapered with etchings of bricks, and close the old weathered door behind you.
By GREG COOK | July 29, 2009

Free speechifying

Letters to the Boston editor, July 17, 2009
How can Dan Kennedy pick a list of people who trample freedom of expression without listing the mayor of Boston?
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | July 15, 2009

By | January 01, 0001

The 12th Annual Muzzle Awards

A look at the dishonorable enemies of free speech and personal liberty in New England.
With the era of repression and secrecy fostered by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney finally over, this should be the best of times for freedom of expression, open government, and civil liberties. Yet change comes slowly.
By DAN KENNEDY | July 10, 2009

By | January 01, 0001

States of the art

New England museums worth traveling for
In New England, where you can't swing a sack of cranberries without hitting a venerable cultural institution, anyone with access to a car (or even a subway pass) can scope out these topnotch art museums.
By SHAULA CLARK | June 09, 2009

Tory Row

The Miracle of Science guys do it again
Matthew Curtis and Christopher A. Lutes, perfect-pitch masters of minimalism at Miracle of Science, Cambridge 1, Middlesex Lounge, and Audubon Circle, have finally opened a restaurant with a few flaws.
By ROBERT NADEAU | June 04, 2009

By | January 01, 0001

Fabulous fakes

Author confronts his Facebook impersonator and reviews her exhibit
The e-mail from "Craig Cook" arrived on March 2. It directed me to a Facebook page pretending to be Greg Cook's, and a YouTube video. I was busy, so I watched only the beginning of the latter.
By GREG COOK | April 13, 2009

Radically unoriginal

Letters to the Boston editor, February 27, 2009
Greg Cook’s breathless description of “the hottest show in the nation right now” ignores a lot of troubling context in the Fairey phenomenon.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | February 25, 2009