Deitch Projects' final exhibit, Shepard Fairey's May Day is certainly a crowd pleaser. From the throngs overflowing onto Wooster Street on opening night to the heavy daily traffic through the gallery, Fairey is helping Jeffrey Deitch bid adieu to NYC with a bang.
The show's name not only refers to its May 1st opening date and a "celebration of spring and the rebirth it represents" (from show's press release) but also references International Worker's Day or Labor Day which is observed in almost 100 countries as a day of "political demonstrations and celebrations coordinated by unions and socialist groups." With his large-scale, black, white, and red portraits of icons including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Deborah Harry, Nico, Iggy Pop, Joe Strummer, Muhammad Ali, The Dalai Lama, Cornel West, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, Fairey presents revolutionary figures whom he admires for their political and cultural contributions. As the artist states, "These people I'm portraying were all revolutionary, in one sense or another. They started out on the margins of culture and ended up changing the mainstream."
The term "Mayday" is also a "distress signal used by pilots, police and firefighters in times of emergency." With this show Fairey is sending out a distress signal to call attention to the "political, environmental, economic, cultural" problems that exist globally. As the artist behind the Barack Obama "HOPE" poster states, "By now we thought we would be in post-Bush utopia, but we're still having to call attention to these problems. Like any mayday call, however, the sound of the alarm also brings hope for help on the way... If we stay silent, there's no hope. But if we make noise, if we put our idea out there, then maybe we can make a change like the people in the portraits have done." Learn more at Deitch.com. Through May 29th.
Parking lot across from gallery
These are some wonderful peices, i love the use of the red in the pictures
Posted by: Karen | 05/20/2010 at 06:25 AM