Last night, my ever-cool friend, India, and I attended the members-only opening night of the Shepard Fairey exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Boston. (Like us, I'm sure many of you have not heard the name Shepard Fairey, but I assure you that his work is nearly ubiquitous. He famously created the Obama Hope posters that have plastered billboards, scaffolding, and magazine covers. This kind of graphic propagandist street art is Shepard's signature.)We arrived at the impressive ICA to find that the Obama enthusiasm extended to the artistic interpretations of his ideals. Despite a required advance RSVP, there was a line! There was NO red wine left when we arrived midway through the opening! Needless to say, India and I, mistresses of malcontent, were not pleased.
However, as a result of waiting in line for almost 40 minutes, we arrived in the gallery to find that Shepard Fairey himself (all 5'6" of his youthful, hipster spirit) was roaming the space giving a kind of ad-hoc commentary on his work.
What luck! Thank goodness for Bostonian inefficency and lack of planning!
The Shepard Fairey exhibit is going on now through August.
