Shepard Fairey
Backward Forward
Dallas Contemporary
September 2022 - July 2023
For over three decades, Shepard Fairey has created iconic imagery that challenges systemic power structures and inequality. The resounding impact of his work has made him an artist of legendary status with an immense global following. The power of Shepard’s artwork resides in the combination of the compelling narratives inherent in the pictures he creates and his ability to adapt to a continuously changing society. Shepard is a master storyteller who uses images to help us navigate the complicated world we inhabit while understanding the social impact of art and culture. The title of the exhibition, Backward Forward, addresses society’s current struggle with competing political narratives. At a moment in history when a collaborative mindset is essential to address multiple existential problems on a global scale, the artist asks, “What do we want the future to look like?” and “Are we moving forward or backward?”
The artworks on view in Backward Forward highlight shifts in key aspects of Fairey’s practice. Although the themes about which the artist is most passionate—the environmental crisis, gun violence and equal rights—prevail, his early artworks were characterized by a confrontational style that embodied the D.I.Y., punk ethos that defined the defiant youth culture of the 1980s and 90s. In contrast, the new work incorporates a narrative of hope, equality and shared humanity. It also reveals technical sophistication, including a new series, Modular Discourse, which requires an extreme level of precision and technical skill to combine and align compounded archival imagery. By way of new mediums, the exhibition features a steel sculpture representing an oversized AR-15 with a lily in the barrel, a visual plea to end the mass shootings that plague the nation. Lastly, two indoor murals reflect Shepard’s transition from modular, wheat-pasted paper murals to more durable painted murals as his medium of choice for public art. Fairey’s switch to paint responds to the public’s changing attitudes about street art, specifically murals, which were once seen as vandalism and are now widely accepted as a vital cultural element in the urban landscape, a testament to the critical role Shepard’s work played in shifting public sentiment about the art form.
The combined shifts in Fairey’s practice help make visible a more productive way toward cultural discourse, one that might lead to a more peaceful prosperity for all.
Adjunct Curator: Pedro Alonzo
Curatorial Assistant: Inés Maldonado Cabañas
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Photo credits: Courtesy of Shepard Fairey (ObeyGiant.com) / Photographer Jonathan Furlong