Fairly Fairey at the Fair

Detail, Site-Specific Mural, 29th Street, Miami, December 2008

It seems like Shepard Fairey is all over Miami Basel. With good reason, because he has somehow managed to do the impossible: capture the zeitgeist of the nation's political and cultural mood while producing visually and intellectually rich imagery. He blew into town and created a fantastic mural on the side of a building on 29th Street only five days ago, while his work is a virtual sell-out at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery exhibit space at the Scope alternative art fair. With prices topping out at $25,ooo for the largest pieces and overall multi-fair-wide sales reportedly dampened by the economic downturn, his success is a pleasant testament to talent and ubiquity. When asked about the impact of Fairey's Obama poster on buyer interest, the gallery rep pointed to his pre-existing, ongoing popularity with collectors, as well as the common first-impression that his work might be that of an Asian artist. Nonetheless, a number of first-time collectors have joined the ranks during the Miami event. With limited edition prints going for $1100 and up, the appeal is clear. Buy now and feel good about it.

Detail, Site-Specific Mural, 29th Street, Miami, December 2008

Shepard Fairey at Jonathan LeVine
Obey Giant: Worldwide Propaganda Delivery

American Election Idol

John McCain: 57,434,084 - 46.1%

Barack Obama: 65,431,955 - 52.6%

Sanjaya Malakar, Voted Off in Week 4, Ranked in the Bottom 2

Once again, the American Idol Effect has helped eliminate the obvious losers, as demonstrated by the choices shown above and their respective election results. Even the vote-for-the-worst strategy of the Republican party didn't pan out. Our participative culture actually got off the couch and voted in their local polling places instead of through a cell phone. According to Wikipedia, our touchstone of truthiness, 124,372,419 million voted this year.

"The voter turnout for this election was broadly predicted to be very high. One widely publicized early estimate predicted turnout of 136.6 million people or 64% of the voting population—which would have been the highest rate in 100 years. However, as of 1 p.m. Eastern Time on November 9th, with 99.6% of the precincts reporting, the total number of votes stands at only 124.47 million, just 2.2 million more than in the 2004 election."

While Sniffipedia may think that a 2% increase is just only a little increase, it should be hailed, as in 2004 fewer people voted for the winning candidate George Bush (62,040,610 votes) than voted for the winning American Idol contestant Fantasia Barrino (65 million votes). This year, Idol winner David Cook did not receive more votes than either McCain or Obama, although his 54.2 million votes were an impressive share of the all-time Idol high vote of 97 million.