Shepard Fairey
One of the biggest names in street art today, Shepard Fairey’s propaganda-referencing images are wheatpasted on urban exteriors from Paris to Philadelphia. The graphic designer skyrocketed to domestic fame after creating the iconic Hope poster used during Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, but the Rhode Island School of Design-trained artist actually cut his teeth in San Diego, and his legendary Obey stickers featuring the face of Andre the Giant are still plastered all over the city. Fairey returned to town recently to create a pair of enormous wall-sized murals commissioned as part of Viva la Revolución, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego’s landmark new exhibition of international street art (see p. 8 for details). WHERE spoke with Fairey via telephone about Marshall McLuhan, urbanism, punk-rock Mexican food and San Diego’s best jukebox. (To locate Fairey’s Viva murals, pick up a map at MCASD.)

What can street art do that “Establishment” art can’t?
Conventional art, whether it’s just a perception or reality, is viewed as very elite and difficult to break into. The street is a place where an artist can put their stuff out there without the pressure to fulfill audience expectations that they would have in a gallery or a museum. It encourages people to act, and that’s the most important step in making progress: the trial and error, the practice, the act of doing it. A lot of artists I’ve known have started off doing stuff that’s fairly crude, but the excitement of doing it made them evolve quickly. It also means that some stuff ends up in public that maybe some people don’t want to look at, but I see it as not much different from free speech: I might not agree with everything I hear, but I still like the concept of people having the right to say it.

Is there a call to action in your pieces for Viva?
Some of the pieces I did were about political activism, whether it’s human rights in Burma or global warming or war. I’d hope people would see that there’s a healthy blend of art and activism, but I also think that not everything in life has to be contentious. If you present it in a way that’s visually pleasing, even if you’re not intersted in the messages, there’s something to get out of it. The street art I did in San Diego was legal, but normally .... I’ll use the McLuhan phrase “the medium is the message,” because street art demonstrates that someone is willing to take matters into their own hands; it’s a call to action in itself.

People don’t typically associate San Diego with urbanism...
San Diego seems like it’s evolved for the kind of stuff that I like, but it’s also one of the cleanest cities I’ve ever been to. There’s a good bit of youth culture, but it doesn’t necessarily get supported by the Establishment—that’s where the disconnect happens. But then a show like this somehow makes a connection with the Establishment, and that’s a good thing.

When you do come back to town, what’s on your agenda?
Café on Park is probably my favorite restaurant. There’s a really good Mexican spot further up Park called El Zarape. Downtown there’s a Mexican place called Pokez; it’s got a lot of vegetarian stuff and it’s run by an old punk rocker. There’s a great jukebox at the Ken Club; the guys from the Casbah were good friends of mine. I try to go check those places out, say hi to people.

Any S.D. artists worth watching?
Mike Maxwell used to work for me; he’s a really great painter and illustrator. There’s a guy named Neko. There’s a street art crew called Do the Math, and all the guys have transitioned into doing fine art. One guy who’s been struggling to support this kind of art for years—struggling because it’s not great for business—is Jerry from Ducky Waddles Emporium; that guy’s been selling books and posters by underground artists for over 15 years. He’s an expert on this culture and probably one of the people most responsible for keeping it alive.

Details
Café on Park 3831 Park Blvd., Hillcrest, 619.293.7275 / El Zarape 4642 Park Blvd., University Heights, 619.692.1652 / Pokez 947 E St., downtown, 619.702.7160 / Kensington Club 4079 Adams Ave., Kensington, 619.284.2848 / The Casbah 2501 Kettner Blvd., Midtown, 619.232.4355 / Ducky Waddles Emporium 414 N. Coast Highway 101, Leucadia, 760.632.0488