Shepard Fairey

Thanks to Shepard's arrest, the use of public space and the consequences associated with it are now under wide discussion. The exhibition and the arrest force those who consider these ideas to rethink preconceived notions of graffiti, public art and advertisements. Public space is commonly used by artists, as well as families posting flyers looking for their lost dogs and students offering their babysitting services, but mostly by advertisers.

Yet rarely is anyone besides artists persecuted for their use of the urban landscape. While Shepard is on trial, the retailer Madewell is not, despite having illegal ads posted on the same public building as some of Shepard's work in question. Nor are the Harvard, MIT and Tufts University crew teams, whose logos are prominently and illegally displayed on a bridge crossing the Charles River in Boston.

Read the full essay in Arkitip Issue No. 0051

Along the lines of sacrificing your work to the streets: you make a lot of work that you intend for as many people as possible to see, but it also means that anybody can be a critic, especially with the Internet. You're probably one of the most critiqued artists in the world. How do you deal with that?

Well the way I deal with criticism from the peanut gallery is I try to really look at what's a fair criticism and a reasonable analysis, and then try to analyze that feedback. But the majority of it is from people who have found an outlet to vent, because they're unhappy in their own lives and have chosen to vent about me, and it's really not about me; it's about them. I think when you're an artist and you're putting work out there for people to see, you have to be willing to trust your own judgment, your own instincts, and I do feel like I have a dialogue with the public through my work, but mostly I create stuff based on what I feel is right.

I don't second-guess those instincts. I've made mistakes over the years and learned from seeing reactions to things I wouldn't have expected, but for the most part I'm at ease because I know that I'm doing something that affects people, sometimes positively, sometimes negatively, but I'm doing something. My work's always been about being proactive and empowering yourself, and if some criticism results, that's ok. Because for all the critics, there are also a lot of other people that are very inspired to go out and, instead of just being critics and voyeurs, become participants.

Read the full interview in Arkitip Issue No. 0051