The ICA/Boston got more than it bargained for with its "Shepard Fairey: Supply and Demand" show, which opens this week. They didn't know when they started planning a year ago that Fairey's "Obama Hope" poster would become the emblematic image of the 2008 presidential campaign, raising the exhibition's profile immeasurably. And you have to wonder if they took much heed of the Fairey-is-a-ripoff-artist allegations that circulated from time to time.
Globe cartoonist Dan Wasserman restarted the fun with this blog post on Monday, and now the "Obama Hope" image itself is at the center of a new controversy. Turns out the AP wants Fairey to cough up for use of a photo by then-AP stringer Manny Garcia that forms the basis of the "Obama Hope" image. As with the previous controversy, Fairey's lawyer and his posse shrug it off - appropriating mass media images is fair use central to his work, they say. But Fairey couldn't be reached for comment, even though he's in town for exhibit-related activities, and the ICA declined comment. They've got to be less than thrilled with the timing, of course, but you'd think they'd come out swinging to defend the work.
According to the AP, Fairey has acknowledged that the Garcia picture was the basis of the poster. And any legal action may hinge on some arcane bit of law - Is it copyright infringement if he drew the image by hand? What about if he scanned the picture and then tweaked it in Photoshop? (UPDATE: Dan Kennedy actually has a better insight here.) But much as with graffiti taggers and computer hackers, the two sides are unlikely to agree about what's right and wrong here.
Here are a couple of audio clips I made of Fairey talking about "Obama Hope" to a group of us bloggers and other reporters at the ICA press event on Tuesday morning. The first one is just over three minutes long and features Fairey talking about the creation of the poster - no mention of Manny Garcia - and how the image became such a fast-spreading meme:
The second clip is just over two minutes long. Just before it begins, Fairey said he'd received a thank-you from Obama. He goes on to talk about meeting Obama and how the poster also led to an adopt-a-pet campaign:
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