Counter-revolutionary art

Obey and the manufacturing of dissent

Bibliographic Data

ID12877288
AuthorsFrancesco Screti (0000-0002-2680-5291, University of Fribourg, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume14
Issue4
Pages362-384
Publication date2017-03-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCritical Discourse Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1740-5904 • E-ISSN: 1740-5912
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17405904.2017.1284138
OpenAlexW2608537985
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited58

In this paper I critically analyze the work of Shepard Fairey, the street artist better known as OBEY, as a multimodal discourse. After introducing the notion of street art, I analyze Fairey’s aesthetics, inspired in Pop Art and Soviet Constructivism, as well as his accounts on his own art, in order to unveil his ideology. I then discuss a particular case, concerning the pastiche of the Che Guevara’s image. I will show that the seemingly subversive nature of OBEY’s work, is nothing more than marketing. Consequently, by industrially (re)producing and commodifiying dissent, OBEY banalizes and deactivates it. According to the dichotomy between oppositional and emergent discourses, I conclude that OBEY enacts only an oppositional behavior. Moreover, by ‘manufacturing propaganda dissent’, OBEY performs protest, but in doing so he contributes to perpetuating the system he says he fights against

Aesthetics · Constructivism (international relations · Dissent · Epistemology · Ideology · International relations · Nothing · Order (exchange · Political dissent · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Work of art · Law · Law in Society and Culture · Music History and Culture · Philosophy · Public Spaces through Art

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