Geeky lecture notes

I went to hear Shepard Fairey speak at the Corcoran last night and felt compelled to write down everything he said. He verbalized pretty much everything I hope The Pink Line Project represents and ideals by which I'd like to live my life. Here's an early morning summary:

• Art is about accessibility, visibility, and passion.
• Art is for the people and creating a dialogue with and among people. Art should be seen beyond institutions. SF is a self-proclaimed populist who looks for ways to communicate with a broader audience.
  
• An appealing aspect of street art is that you may not know what it is but you know it's an act of defiance by someone who took a risk.
• Making art is exciting and makes you feel alive.
• SF studied the idea of phenomonology by Heideger: people become so numb to their surroundings that they need things to awaken their senses. The provocative and disruptive nature of street art can have that affect.
• Go see a movie called "They Live."
• The idea behind the word "Obey" in his work is to disrupt those people who talk a lot but do little and take the path of least resistance, and then when you tell then to "Obey," they get offended.
• Advertising is the most pervasive form of propaganda and is shrouded in benevolence. SF has worked in advertising and he feels like Robin Hood. When he made money, rather than buy a slick car, he poured it back into his street art - buying 100,000 stickers to give away.
• When accused of selling out, his view is that the accuser wouldn't even know about his street art if he had not taken the "sell out" job to fund the street art on a massive scale.
  
• His work is designed to make viewers question what they see, and maybe question everything they see.
• SF tries to make beautiful work that has something to say.
  
• Regarding religion: SF says we are too concerned about the people who came before us and the people who are around after we're dead but we don't care enough about the people who are with us right now.
• You don't have to be a gifted, talented artist to make are that affects people in a profound way.
• Elitism happens in subculture as much as anywhere else.
  
• Graffiti is driven by the desire to show you exist.