Fairey unfair?

• Author: Rodriguez, Lydia
• Position: Letter to the editor

I, too, remember when "Obey" images started showing up (see "Shepard Fairey, Citizen Artist," by Antonino D'Ambrosio, June issue). I was more intrigued by Robbie Conal's meaty portraits of decaying politicians but I like Fairey's work enough to have two signed posters in my home. Recently, however, I've become aware of his somewhat blatant use of other artists' work in his art, and it disturbs me. The problem is that he's appropriating these images without credit, taking them from the cold dead (or sometimes still living) hands of other artists and using them stripped of their original meanings. This smacks of historical amnesia and cultural imperialism. How hard would it be to give any of these artists even the smallest crumb of credit?

A prime example is the Fairey T-shirt "Cuban Riders," which is a near exact copy of Cuban poster artist Rene Mederos's silkscreen from 1972 of Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos. Fairey simply changed the colors and slapped his logo on Mederos's art. He's even robbed the...