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Introduction
Shepard Fairey (1970) is one of the most known contemporary street artists of today (Stephens, 2006, p.1). He started as underground artist similar to street artists like Jean Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Banksy, who use public spaces as their canvasses (Screti, 2017, p.366). Fairey’s first form of street art was making and spreading stickers, on his website he writes “Stickers rule” (2003). Since 1984 he had a particular interest in punk and skate culture, and their stickers served as proof of these interests. While also making his own paper-cut stencils, he became obsessed with creating stickers of his favourite skate mags and band logo’s. When, in 1988, he started studying at the Rhode Island School of Design the urge to design his own sticker, his own identity, came (Fairey, 2003). A big inspiration was his visit to New York, where since the 1970’s there has been a big graffiti boom, including the spread of immense numbers of stickers (Stephens, 2006, p.17). Stickers became Fairey’s form of graffiti, an art form where it isn’t just about what is shown but also about how they are shown, what role they play in public spaces (Fairey, 2003). Distributing his stickers in public spaces, an ‘illegal’ act, is an action in itself that rejects dominant cultural instances (Stephens, p.2). On top of that, the image’s design references the style of propaganda, thereby presenting a way that explores how in our modern days, street art, posters and sticker can serve to challenge the norm and give an institutional critique. Hence, his work is very relevant for contemporary street, but his approach is also relevant for society in general as it possibly contains a revolutionary potential.

He found an image and made it his own (see Figure 1), and so, in 1989 the OBEY campaign was born. Soon his stickers were to be found everywhere. The iconic satirical image made it possible to reach his target audience: “the public at large with no specific audience in mind” (Stephens, 2006, p.12). His campaign, based on the mystique of the image, stimulated people’s curiosity and it got picked up by local media. As a street artist he learned to self-advertise from the pop artists (Screti, 2017, p.366). Because although they were intended as an art project and not for sale, eventually he had to make some money to be able to keep producing his work. He started to ask for small contributions and build a t-shirts business that now has grown to a worldwide known clothing brand under the same name: OBEY (Fairey, 2003). OBEY gave him underground fame, but it was the Obama HOPE poster he designed in 2008 during Obama’s presential campaign that gave him his mainstream fame, also making OBEY giant into a global phenomenon (Screti, p.367).
In order to get a better understanding of Fairey’s texts it is necessary to look at other cultural texts that have inspired it (Goodnow, 2010, p.12). One of his main inspirations has been propaganda, especially for his style as the mentioned form of revolutionary activism. Nowadays propaganda connotes manipulation, politization, a way to destroy the subject. However, in Soviet Russia Agitprop, agitational Propaganda, was used to spread the ideals for building a new soviet society, which was needed after the second World War, and to make people obey their leaders (Cull, Culbert & Welch, 2003, p.22; Stephens, 2006, p.25). Especially advertising posters were used as revolutionary propaganda, because it was the most effective and cheap medium for mass production (Lodder, 2012, p.231). Furthermore, it was based on the idea that consumers are best reached through their emotions and not through reason, this is called psychological advertising. Therefore, the propaganda design and messages are simple, focusing on emotions like love and hatred, to spread it to the (illiterate) public at large (Cull et all, p.6).