"When a thing has been said and said well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it."
~ Anatole France
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the subliminal counter-culture OBEY Giant anti-campaign started by underground artist and subversive Shepard Fairey, shortly after his graduation from Boston's ICA. Fairey has been all over the media lately because of a legal battle he is embroiled in over the rights to the AP photograph which he used as a template for the now iconic Obama "HOPE" poster.
Just as there are two sides to his Obama poster, Shepard himself is an irreconcilable juxtaposition of two opposing views in the art world. Consumers of his un-brand "Obey" - which are legion - consider him "a heroic guerilla street artist waging a one man campaign against the corporate powers-that-be", an image he's worked long and hard to culture. Conversely, he has as many vocal detractors - most notably art critics - who consider him the worst kind of plagaristic and profiteering capitalist the art world would dare to call its own.
Fairey discovered the power of making his own stickers when he placed a few hundred adhesive images of André’s face accompanied by the enigmatic slogan “André the Giant has a posse” which quickly got the attention of the town paper and civic establishment. This prompted more stickers. Followed by more reaction. Which brought on bigger stickers, wider reach, an eventually evolved into a cult of André, and a franchise graffiti operation whereby an informal army of surrealist propagandists could send for a pile of stickers, or make their own copies, or copies of copies of copies, and bring André and his posse to their town overnight. By the time Fairey came full circle and added obey to the André image, in 1995, he had stumbled into an international interactive public-art practice.
Presented above is a series of Fairey creations, reproduced as stickers, posters and other merchandise under the brand "OBEY" along with a list of cultural and political revolutions that spawned the propaganda which served as inspiration for these works. What you need to do is match the Fairey reproduction to the original revolution in the list provided.
CACHE IS NOT AT THE ABOVE COORDINATES
Solve N44°AB.CDE W88°FG.HIJ OBEY.
4. An adaptation of a poster in George Orwell’s cautionary story of a dystopic future.
8. Famous recruitment poster for the Soviet Red Army. 1920.
1. Borrowed heavily from a poster during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution period.
5. From the work of an important member of the Vienna Secession movement.
2. Inspired by street poster from Czechoslovakia’s, Prague Spring.
8. Culled from artwork of one of the founders of the late 1960’s Chicano Arts Movement.
9. From a poster created by an unknown artist in the Young Lords Party in 1971.
9. From a famous Cuban poster artist. Pulled from production when Fairey's partner acknowledged the violation.
0. From another celebrated Cuban poster maker.
4. From work for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to promote travel and tourism.