Not to mention plagiarized from real art, the main thrust of the article.
[link]Mark Vallen finds Shepard Fairey's work apolitical and dehistoricized
Not to mention plagiarized from real art, the main thrust of the article.
[link]
Fairey’s work takes old
Anonymous — Wed, 2008-02-13 14:56Fairey’s work takes old advertisements and old propaganda posters and repurposes them to highlight the manipulation being carried out through visual media. His style’s been called “absurdist propaganda” for a reason. One that’s apparently lost on people who see the original pieces of propaganda and think “he stole!” Well, duh. But look at the repurposing. On the “gun” images, the original propagandist is trying to arouse your feelings to want to go off to war and fight for “your country (=some leader).” Fairey turns that line of thinking on its ear. In the Yellowstone piece, you have your government (National Park) telling us Yellowstone is a wonderful, magical place. In Fairey’s piece, he’s shedding light on the fact our government is telling us things in Iraq are better than they really are. See? Repurposing propaganda to illustrate the absurdity within or without.
Mark Vallen is simply trying to jumpstart his go-nowhere career by bashing someone who actually HAS one. It’s a time-honored tradition among the second-rate and failing. The fact that he passed out literature– including HIS OWN ART– amongst those standing in line at Fairey’s show ought to tell you he’s simply an opportunist out to raise his own profile. If he were truly interested in constructive dialogue he would have picked up the phone and made the local call to Fairey to ask him about it. Then, if he wasn’t satisfied with the answers– or at least wanted to include them– he could have offered up the other side of the coin. Instead, he posted a shrill call of “Look at Me!” in hopes of selling a few more canvases of his Jr. High caliber artwork. Pretty sad, really.
"Mark Vallen is simply
Richard — Wed, 2008-02-13 15:44"Mark Vallen is simply trying to jumpstart his go-nowhere"...not the first time this comment has appeared in the blogosphere. Someone going around looking for people who link to the Vallen article? The person who left it here didn't identify themselves, not even an email address.
Ah, Wallen already responded
Richard — Wed, 2008-02-13 21:45Ah, Wallen already responded to the anonymous commenter above. Quoting from his article: “Not only did I not attend the opening of Fairey's Los Angeles exhibit at the Merry Karnowsky Gallery, I've not been to the gallery at any time during the show's run. I've never attended any of Fairey's solo exhibits. I have absolutely no knowledge of, or connection to, any group or individual who might have passed out the above article, or my artworks, at Fairey's exhibit. If anyone had proposed to me that such a course of action be taken, I would have adamantly forbidden the use of the article, and my artworks, to be used in that manner.”
Wow. Two paragraphs by way
Anonymous — Sun, 2008-02-17 06:45Wow. Two paragraphs by way of response to your re-posting of Vallen's juvenile screed, including discussion on the origins of Fairey's art and method, and the only thing you want to talk about is one sentence within it.
Quite the thinking man's pleasure palace you have here.
I actually have a response
Richard — Sun, 2008-02-17 11:56I actually have a response to the first comment but I'm letting it stew a bit. I wanted to make sure that people stumbling here knew that there was already someone (Wallen himself) who responded directly to your comment that has been cut & pasted all over the web.
Of course you do. That's why
Anonymous — Sun, 2008-02-17 17:14Of course you do. That's why it hasn't been posted, four days later.
Overheard: Who in the hell
Anonymous — Sun, 2008-02-17 17:22Overheard:
Who in the hell is Mark Vallen?
"He's the guy who had 3 other people help him write a 6,000 word essay about why it
sucks that Shepard Fairey is famous and he's not."
Fine, here it is in all its
Richard — Sun, 2008-02-17 17:57Fine, here it is in all its unfinished glory.
I never believed that Shepard Fairey's works were true originals, in the sense that many people consider the word 'original'. That is, I knew he was using others' images and making them his own. To some people (me included) that's plagiarism. It's only plagiarism if it's not obvious what he's doing, though. He's obviously taking an image and removing elements from it, sharpening them, adding the Andre the Giant logo somewhere (his signature), and yes, de-historizing art. But North American culture is ahistorical and apolitical to a higher degree than elsewhere. People here unproblematically wear Che Guevara t-shirts and tote communist chic bags as if the symbols were meaningless, because capitalism has made them meaningless. I liken Fairey to DJ Shadow (with whom Fairey worked), and to be honest, as a fan of Shadow, the violent images on his box set and t-shirts lost me. (Actually, it was the cost of a box set of materials I already had that lost me first.) Shadow redefined ownership of music and sound with his first album, Entroducing..., made entirely of unidentifiable—to most—sounds from old records and made something entirely new. Fairey does the same, if a little more bluntly ("clumsy" is the word Vallen uses). I was excited by the potential that Vellen might write more than one sentence in the comparision he made to Andy Warhol, but he spilled most of his digital ink on pointing out the originals Fairey used instead of usefully comparing him to that other pop culture artist.
That's about as far as I got with my response before you got impatient. I think we can discuss the article on its merits rather than the art career of its writer. I've now heard of Mark Vallen, so criticize him all you want for his motives, but he succeeded in making himself more famous. (Duh, even one of his contributors even called it a provocative polemic.) He also spent a lot of time making Fairey more famous by writing the 6,000 word essay about him.
Since when is it wrong to get people to help you write something?
Mark Vallen is a hack.
Anonymous — Fri, 2008-02-29 17:10Mark Vallen is a hack.
No contact info left on that
Richard — Fri, 2008-02-29 17:30No contact info left on that one either. The image is hosted at the root of soluna.org, which would indicate ownership of the domain. If you go to http://www.betterwhois.com/bwhois.cgi?domain=soluna.org you can find out the domain's owner. At least Mark Vallen signs his name when he critiques others.
I think mark vallen is
Eric Ember — Fri, 2008-05-30 12:25I think mark vallen is valuable in hi ability to impinge a message to society. With liberties being taken away every day in America I think it is a very valuable message.
Is it art? Of course it is. Is it fine art, no, just like comic books are not considered "literature", but they still are stories.
I own 3 t-shirts with his work and they create more reaction than anything else I have ever worn