Reviewing Shepard Fairey’s First Retrospective

While a lot of the focus recently has been on Shepard Fairey the man and not Shepard Fairey the artist, what with his ongoing legal battle with the Associated Press and his arrest in Boston with potentially more charges to come. But lest we forget, that very same arrest took place as he was heading to the opening of the first retrospective of his work at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Fortunately, art critic Ken Johnson has put together a great review of the collection, wonderfully entitled “Can a Rebel Stay a Rebel Without the Claws?” which speaks to the problem a lot of critics and viewers have had with Fairey’s work, that it’s all pomp and no circumstance, showy without much depth behind it. And that feeling has heightened while the artist became more popular and took on more commercial projects, thus blurring that line between “art” and attractive design. Well worth the read if you’ve ever had inner or outer turmoil with Fairey’s work and trying to pin down exactly where it lands.

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