Shepard Fairey, better known as Obey Giant, stands behind a decades-long cross-cultural phenomenon spanning illustration, street art, painting, activism, fashion and most recently photography.
The latter isn’t a side pursuit of an overachieving artist but a foundation that has enabled everything else, he tells us ahead of Photo Synthesis — his forthcoming exhibition at Fotografiska Berlin.
In conversation with Max Rossi, he talks about the convergence of fine arts and photography, art as counter-narrative and why there’s no such thing as an original creation.
Image credits: (L): ‘Noise & Lies (Cream)’, 2018. (R): ‘Berlin Tower’, 2011.
MR: In previous interviews, you called yourself a “populist artist.” Could you elaborate on this concept?
SF: It’s a nuanced definition. When it comes to politics, populism takes on a very negative connotation, but for me it simply means that I want my work to be understandable, democratic and relatable to anyone. That doesn’t mean I’m trying to use tricks to manipulate the uninformed by appealing to some unrealistic fantasy the way populist politicians often do.
MR: Your upcoming exhibition Photo Synthesis revolves around the idea that photography shaped your practice. What part did it play?
SF: A lot of people might not know that photography has been a major component of my work for many years. For this exhibition I wanted to build a bridge between my practice and what this museum usually exhibits — photography — to show all the ways the medium has influenced me. Sometimes I’ll turn a photo I’ve taken into an illustration. Other times I will capture my street art, frame it and repurpose it within a gallery. Early on, as I was learning to screen print, I often worked directly from my own photographs.
In the end, though, I work graphically with a very recognisable style, which means I don’t have to worry about consistency like most photographers. My photographic references can be as diverse as I want as long as they acquire my visual language once I translate them into an artwork.
Image credits: (L): ‘OBEY Pole, 2000’. (R): ‘Eye Alert (Cream)’, Version 1, 2010.
MR: You’ve done illustrations, photography, street art, paintings and fashion to name a few. What are the core elements that tie together your visual language across all these media?
SF: My mark of style as an illustrator is reduction, especially in relation to portraits. There are also motifs I return to again and again, like my star icon or the Obey [André the Giant] face, along with other patterns I’ve designed. I’m always expanding my visual vocabulary, but no matter how familiar or obscure the motifs you can still spot my approach to ornamentation.
MR: The 1989 street art campaign that launched Obey was a critique of authority and conformity. If you were to start today, in our current climate of censorship, would you do things differently?
SF: I’m still drawn to street art for the same reason I always was: it’s a way to meaningfully interact not just with the environment but with the people who live in it. These days I also communicate through social media, but it’s never provided the same visceral experience as seeing something in the street that changes the landscape. That makes me even more drawn toward street art. I actually find social media sort of irritatingly safe and anonymous. I like things that require risk and that’s one of the reasons I’m into skateboarding and punk rock — you can’t do those things from the safety of a screen in your bedroom.
In the US, due to government censorship and self-censorship, some people prefer not to speak to avoid getting punished, but that doesn’t affect how I do things. The main reason to keep speaking out against conformity is to prevent exactly what’s already happening in some places. It’s more important than ever and those who say otherwise are cowards.
Image credits: (L): ‘Stay Up Girl, 2004’. (R): ‘Peace Guard 2’, 2016.
MR: Do you think it’s art’s responsibility to be politically engaged nowadays?
SF: Of course it has to be. Everything is political all the time. What you spend your time on, what companies you support, what kinds of movies or shows you consume — those are all political choices. Whether you’re a creator, an artist or a consumer, you have a responsibility to help shape the world into something fairer and kinder.
That said, it’s easier said than done because a lot of people are drawn to the worst sides of human nature or easily swayed into feeling insecure if they don’t participate in something.
MR: If art chooses to take a political stance, does it risk becoming propaganda?
SF: Anyone who thinks that anything can escape being labelled as propaganda is naïve. To me, propaganda is meant to manipulate people into conforming without realising they have alternatives. What I try to do is offer a counter-narrative to those who insist, “This is how things must be, or else you’re a deviant.”
Of course, some will call my work propaganda in order to dismiss it, and that’s the communication battle of humanity all the time.
Image credits: (L): ‘Panther Power, 2023’. (R): ‘Bias By Numbers’, 2023.
MR: Artists whose work references other media are often accused of plagiarism. How do you distinguish between homage and appropriation?
SF: I happen to be a fan of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Barbara Kruger, but also of Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. They all used pre-existing raw material in their work but each transformed it into something truly their own. That’s what it comes down to: finding your voice in a world full of visual noise and turning it into something distinct.
Everything builds on what came before — technologically, scientifically, culturally and politically. Anyone who claims to have made something completely original is a liar.
MR: Can you walk us through your Fotografiska exhibition Photo Synthesis?
SF: Most of the fine art pieces you will see here were made specifically for this exhibition. They combine painterly elements with collage-like backgrounds layered with patterns and stencil work. On top of that I’ve superimposed translucent illustrations derived from photographs so that one can experience all three forms — painting, illustration and photography — in a single piece of art.
Often, photography sits on one side of the gallery and fine art on another, and I wanted to show how they can inform each other.
Image credit: ‘OG Multi-Panel 1991′, 2018.
MR: With the rise of Artificial Intelligence, many artists, especially illustrators, see their work coldly emulated by machines. Do you see it as a threat, and what can artists do to reclaim authority?
SF: I don’t care if my art is ingested into the AI. I understand that some writers, filmmakers and artists don’t want their work to be part of the raw material that AI uses, but I think that humans already operate as AI machines. Though we’re not artificial, we’re biological; we absorb everything around us and it all gets filtered and finds an influence in what we produce.
My real concern is how AI will be weaponised psychologically. If the algorithms can discern our patterns of behaviour, maybe even better than we understand them, they can exploit our psychological vulnerabilities to steer us toward decisions that serve someone else’s interests. It’s already happened, in a cruder form, with Brexit. People were fed fragments of information, nudged into making choices and now are paying the price.
Photo Synthesis is on view at Fotografiska Berlin through March 8, 2026.
