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This is a quick transcript. Copies may not be in their final form.<\/p>\n
amy<\/span> goodman<\/span>:<\/strong> this is Democracy now!<\/em>democracynow.org, war and peace report<\/em>. I’m Amy Goodman.<\/p>\n Last week I was in Los Angeles for the theatrical release of a documentary. Steal this story!<\/em> About Democracy now!<\/em>I visited the gallery of an artist named Shepard Fairey. he created the artwork for Steal this story!<\/em> Poster. Shepard Fairey rose to national prominence in 2008 as the artist who created then-candidate Barack Obama’s iconic poster with the word “Hope.” He has roots as a street artist and has famous images pasted in wheat to the walls around him, including professional wrestler Andre the Giant and the word “Submission.”<\/p>\n I asked Shepard Fairey about his thoughts on art and politics, and some of the works on display in his latest exhibition.<\/p>\n shepherd<\/span> fairy<\/span>:<\/strong> I think art can help turn things around by taking ethereal emotions and crystallizing them in a way that is very direct, clear, and resonates with someone’s emotions. Art can also be used to persuade people, even in bad ways. I’ve always considered my art not to be propaganda in that it’s meant to end a conversation, but if you want to say it’s propaganda, it’s meant to start a conversation and it’s a counter-narrative that isn’t happening in enough ways.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n amy<\/span> goodman<\/span>:<\/strong> Can you tell me about the Statue of Liberty in handcuffs?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n shepherd<\/span> fairy<\/span>:<\/strong> of course. The phrase “That can’t happen here” is a reference to Sinclair Lewis’s novel of the same name, which depicts the rise of fascism in America, and is a cautionary tale based in part on what happened in the United States in the 1920s and 1930s. But we are experiencing it in a more intense form here and now. So it can and does happen here.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n amy<\/span> goodman<\/span>:<\/strong> Shepard Fairey then showed me around his gallery and showed me some of his other works. Then we went to the poster quartet. each showed ice<\/span> A police officer in riot gear holding a baton. Above each one is labeled “paid agitator,” “domestic terrorist,” “genocidal intent,” and “worst of the worst.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n shepherd<\/span> fairy<\/span>:<\/strong> Although there are differences, the main characters in each are the same. But, I mean, I did these because this is – it’s called projection mirror<\/em>. These are based on everything Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller spout about protesters and immigrants being targeted, and that’s what they’re really trying to do. They are paid agitators. They are domestic terrorists. They are there with the intention of genocide. And they are the worst of the worst. Yes, this series was meant to be a mirror to the people it was projecting.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n amy<\/span> goodman<\/span>:<\/strong> We went to another image showing an oil derrick.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Can you say what it says?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n shepherd<\/span> fairy<\/span>:<\/strong> “At the end of the world, drain the blood and set the earth on fire.” Yes, it’s basically how oil extraction, fossil fuels, are heating up the earth and destroying it. And, you know, a lot of people are still saying, “Drill, baby, drill. Lower gas prices.” And we need to invest in renewable energy.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n amy<\/span> goodman<\/span>:<\/strong> I’m interested in how much you use newspapers. For example, here we have Frida Kahlo.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n shepherd<\/span> fairy<\/span>:<\/strong> oh yeah. Well, I think newspapers are great, first of all, for giving you a concise read of what the idea is, or a little bit of amplification of what the main narrative of the work is. But it also shows us that we are frequently warned about the mistakes we are making, or that we are making the same mistakes over and over again. You can pull up newspaper articles from 40 years ago about civil rights, global warming, and a variety of other issues. And even though we think we’re making progress, we always end up falling back into bad behavior. And I want to remind people that we should know better.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n amy<\/span> goodman<\/span>:<\/strong> Please tell me about Frida Kahlo. I have a lot of them, this one has a newspaper with her name written on it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n shepherd<\/span> fairy<\/span>:<\/strong> So, you know, I’m a big fan of Frida Kahlo’s work. I really admire her feminism, especially compared to her time, and the way she talked about art as a tool for resilience, how art helped her overcome the pain of a bus accident she experienced in her youth, which left her with chronic pain throughout her life. But I also love that Frida Kahlo was initially seen as this cute romantic partner for important Diego Rivera. Currently, she is more famous and more famous than Diego Rivera. They’re both very important artists, but I think the progress we’ve made in terms of her being someone who takes herself very seriously as a female artist is important progress, but we still have a long way to go.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n amy<\/span> goodman<\/span>:<\/strong> That’s Shepard Fairey, the acclaimed artist and activist speaking at a Los Angeles gallery. He created poster art for the following movies Democracy now!<\/i> called Steal this story!<\/i> I’m in the Bay Area because the movie is being released in various theaters. Tonight I will be attending the 4pm and 6pm movie screenings at the Rialto Cinema Sebastopol in Sebastopol. And tomorrow we will arrive at the Tower Theater in Sacramento at 7 o’clock. On Wednesday, I’ll be at Rialto and Roxy on Elmwood in Berkeley.<\/p>\n this is Democracy now!<\/em>democracynow.org. Let’s take a look at the Trump administration’s U.S. Forest Service restructuring plan, which many fear will dismantle the 120-year-old Forest Service. I’ll be back soon.<\/p>\n [break]<\/p>\n amy<\/span> goodman<\/span>:<\/strong> \u201cJano Giotto\u201d performed by Sonny Singh Democracy now!<\/em> studio.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Shepard #Fairey #art #activism #resistance #fascism #happen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is a quick transcript. Copies may not be in their final form. amy goodman: this is Democracy now!democracynow.org, war and peace report. I’m Amy Goodman. Last week I was in Los Angeles for the theatrical release of a documentary. Steal this story! About Democracy now!I visited the gallery of an artist named Shepard Fairey. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1967,584,1966,1969,1970,1968,1965],"class_list":["post-786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-activism","tag-art","tag-fairey","tag-fascism","tag-happen","tag-resistance","tag-shepard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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