Barack Obama x Shepard Fairey: "Progress" Wahlkampagne 2009

Street Art für Street Credibility

Barack Obamas Präsidentschaftskampagne «Obama for America» 2008 baut auf einem ikonischen Portrait des Street Art Künstlers Shepard Fairey – auch eine Art von Co-Branding.
Shepard Fairey, bekannt geworden mit seiner Aktion «Obey Giant», offerierte im Januar 2008 seine Unterstützung für die Wahlkampagne und erhält prompt grünes Licht. Umgesetzt wird die Kampagne getreu Fairey’s Manifest als «phänomenologisches Experiment» .

«In 1989, Shepard Fairey (b. 1970) began to paste stickers all over town with a
face and the mysterious message «Andre the Giant Has a Posse» or «Obey Giant» . Since then, his palette, geographic range and activities have increased enormously, and when he offered to support Barack Obama’s campaign with some posters in January 2008, he readily got permission from Obama to do so. Within a day, he had finished a design, one with the text «PROGRESS», and another with «HOPE».
A first print
run of 350 was sold out within minutes for $ 45 a piece, and, much to Fairey’s annoyance, resold on ebay for a lot more. Wall Street Journal began
to track the ebay prices, they quickly shot up to $ 3’000, and reached $ 10’000 in June. In July, a mixed media painting done by Fairey in the same style as his «Hope» poster, sold for $ 108’000.
By July 31, about 200’000 sticker versions of the original Obama poster had been printed.
Meanwhile, Fairey and his fans continued to wild post their Obamas all over the United States, and Fairey was promptly arrested, like many times before, and spent a night in jail. Ironically, this happened in Denver during the Democratic National Convention that won Obama the nomination of his party.
The strong, simple poster
hit the nerve of many graphic designers. Fairey, who had been accused of copying style and content of communist propaganda posters, found himself suddenly imitated with numerous versions of his original design.
Tutorials and plugins began to appear in the web on how to make your own Fairey/Obama poster, even ready made solutions where you can just enter your own text instead of HOPE.
Not all of the imitations are pro-Obama,
some are below-the-belt, many require detailed knowledge of the campaign events or american folklore to be understandable, some, like the «Marxism» or the «Yes we can» are jewels of satyre, only a few are probably printed or displayed in the streets. Out of curiosity and fascination, I began to look for them in the web: www.thepeoplescube.com, www.obamaartreport.com and flickr are particularly rich sources. Many people also sent me links and explanations, thank you all!»
Quelle: Rene Wanner’s Posterpage http://www.posterpage.ch/exhib/ex216oba/ex216oba.htm

Die Politkampagne gewinnt am Werbefestival in Cannes 2009 gleich zwei Löwen: In der Kategorie «Titanium» (für bahnbrechende provokative Kampagnen) und in der Katgeorie «Integrated» (für Kampagnen mit drei oder mehr Medien). David Plouffe, der kreative Kopf hinter der Kampagne bringt das Erfolgskonzept einfach auf den Punkt: «People have a very sensitive bullshit meter. They believe their neighbour or sisters more than experts.»