via alanajoy:
Yeah, what he said.
Spangler's Log.
-
10.13.09 2 years ago mrmattspangler
-
08.14.09 2 years ago mrmattspangler
Shephard Interviews Banksy
Great interview in Swindle 08
One of the highlights was the anecdote about the work he did on the wall in Palestine:
S: The murals you did in Palestine, I would assume, involved personal risk. You’re there, and you could definitely get some people pissed off and put yourself in jeopardy.
B: Every graffiti writer should go there. They’re building the biggest wall in the world. I painted on the Palestinian side, and a lot of them weren’t sure about what I was doing. They didn’t understand why I wasn’t just writing “down with Israel” in big letters and painting pictures of the Israeli prime minister hanging from a rope. And maybe they had a point. The guy that I stayed with got five days with the “dirty bag” for waving a Palestinian flag out a window. The dirty bag is when Israeli security services get a sack, wipe their shit on it, and put the bag over your head while your hands are tied behind your back. I spat out my falafel as he was explaining that to me, but he just goes, “That’s nothing. My cousin got it for two weeks without a break.” It’s difficult to come home and hear people complaining about reruns on TV after that. It’s very hard for the locals to paint illegally over there. We certainly weren’t doing it under the cloak of darkness; you’d get shot. We were out in the middle of the day, making it very clear we were tourists. Twice, we had serious trouble with the army, but one time the Palestinian border patrol pulled up in an armored truck. The Israeli government makes a big fuss about how they own the wall, despite building it right through the farmland of Palestinians who have been there for generations, so the Palestinian border police don’t give a shit if you paint it or not. They parked between the road and us, gave us water, and just watched. It’s probably the only time I’m ever going to paint whilst being covered by a cop from a roof-mounted submachine gun.
-
06.15.09 2 years ago mrmattspangler
Checking out the new Obey book from Shephard Fairey. It was a generous gift from Shephard after checking out their studio in Echo Park and catching up with old friend Joycie and Flo at Studio Number One. It covers 20 years of his art from 89-09.
Regardless of your opinion of his work, you can’t argue with the quality and volume of great work and the impact he has made on the culture at large.
There is a great quote from Banksy in the book that sums it up better then I could say it…
“I found the Obey Giant campaign repetitive and nauseating. I thought it wasn’t really what you could call “art”, because it didn’t change much and it was so overbearing on its surroundings. For some reason, that fucking face always seemed to jump out at you even from the smallest little sticker. But if you listen to house music for a straight 10 hours on drugs, the smallest little change becomes very significent. And after a while, you don’t ever want that music to change. Somehow, I got sucked into the wrestler’s fat little face and now I don’t want it to do anything else at all.
If Shepard Fairey comes to your town, every single graffiti writer gets uptight. We don’t like Shepard because he makes us feel scared and lazy. I am absolutely positive he has made more reaches than any graffiti writer in the history ever has done or ever will. And that means he’s won. Anyway, I once got to go gambling with his wife and she is very lucky.”
