Our new podcast series!
Listen to the Artists and Activism series of Against the Grain: The Farm Aid Podcast to hear from more than two dozen artists who use their art and voices as vehicles for political engagement and expression on issues that matter to them.
Listen here! All of us at Farm Aid are thrilled that Shepard Fairey decided to bring his distinctive artistic vision to the occasion of marking Farm Aid’s 40th anniversary. You probably know Shepard’s work. – He is arguably America’s best known visual artist – from his OBEY campaign, which began in 1989, four years after Farm Aid’s founding, or from his 2008 Obama HOPE image. If you follow him and his work closely, you know that Shepard, as an activist artist, engages a range of political subjects and celebrates the activists and artists (often musicians) who inspire him.
For Farm Aid, which lives at the intersection of popular music and activism, there could not be a more perfect match.
Shepard’s OBEY campaign began as a critique of the consumer landscape, in which we’re constantly bombarded with messages telling us how to live and, crucially, what to buy, buy, buy. The OBEY Icon – which started as a stencil of professional wrestler Andre the Giant, but eventually became a stylized graphic of Andre’s face that could be recognized at a distance – quickly gained popularity as a rare visual challenge to our corporate-dominated world. Shepard’s relentless “bombing” of the image in stencil, wheatpaste and sticker form, in cities across the country, turned the OBEY campaign into a visual movement with a grassroots feel.
Over time, Shepard expanded his critique of corporate greed and domination – and the mainstream media’s complicity in advancing a corporate agenda – to speaking out on climate change, racism, sexism and many other issues. At the same time, he has become perhaps just as well known for highlighting the work of trailblazing activists, musicians and artists, including Farm Aid board artist Neil Young, with whom he has worked many times.
For Farm Aid, which lives at the intersection of popular music and activism, there could not be a more perfect match. Shepard’s “Farms, Not Factories” print – which goes on sale on Thursday, September 4, at 10:00 am PT – captures perfectly the noble, solitary work of so many family farmers while also highlighting forty years of action and activism fighting the same corporate greed he first targeted with his OBEY campaign. We are honored that Shepard has taken note of both the history and ongoing work of Farm Aid and all of its partners in the family farm movement in creating this spectacular work of art.
Here’s what Shepard himself has to say about his vision for this piece:
To celebrate Farm Aid’s 40 years of fighting for family farms, I created this art to remind people that Farm Aid provides a voice for people who don’t have the kind of resources that corporate agriculture does. Farm Aid was founded in 1985 by Willie Nelson, Neil Young, and John Mellencamp as a concert to raise awareness about the loss of family farms and to raise funds to keep farm families on the land. It continues to operate the music festival to keep that mission alive with the next Farm Aid concert taking place on September 20th in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
With this piece, “Farms Not Factories,” I wanted to tell the story of independent farmers working on their land, as opposed to the big corporate farms that have a huge amount of land and workers. I incorporated historical images of various rallies from Farm Aid organizers over the years, as well as some newspaper clippings from the archives within the ripped collage layers of the illustration. Independent farming is a solitary endeavor, which I showcase with the lone farmhouse situated on the vast landscape, but with Farm Aid, farmers can work together for their interests rather than be overrun by big corporations. Please take a moment to read more about Farm Aid and support this effort by purchasing this print!
