Artist and activist Shepard Fairey this week releases a 2 volume “Earth Crisis” set that commemorates a recent public environmental project and doubles as a collection of plates to jumpstart your collection which you could easily frame and hang. With it comes powerful socio-political messages common to his wheelhouse delivered with the artists often iconic sense of design.

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

With his enormous “Earth Crisis” globe project mounted at the Eiffel Tower for COP21 last November, Fairey brought his activist history, design history, and sense of timing and location to a stunning crescendo with this project. Suspended 60 meters overhead at the base of the tower while world leaders were gathered to discuss global warming, climate change, and energy policy in the so-called First world and Developing world, the globe incorporated many of the messages that Fairey has been bringing to the streets over the last two decades to provoke discussion.

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

In addition to thick cardboard plates of details from the Mandela he created for Paris, a second book of posters addressing related themes is included with his signature style incorporating mid-century slogans and advertising design, punk rock culture rage, and word-play that illuminates and hammers.

Topically the plates address themes including only some of those Mr. Fairey has continued to feature front and center in his street work and fine art and design: campaign-finance reform, the oil economy, air and water, corruption in politics, private control of public natural resources, green energy, the seduction of advertising, corporate collusion, fake patriotism and real climate change.

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Of particular poignance are some of the artists observations and motivations for making the work, including one particularly reflective statement that may point to an artists own struggle to affecting change. He speaks about reading Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” published in 1962 and the effect it had on many.

“The title ‘silent spring’ was intended to force readers to contemplate spring time without the sound of songbirds – a jarring picture but also a reminder that our emotional connection to our environment is mainly just aesthetic,” Fairey writes. “If we stay oblivious to ecological destruction until we notice the aesthetics change by then it will be too late.”

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

Shepard Fairey / OBEY. Earth Crisis. Albin Michel Publishers . Galerie Itenerrance. Paris. July 2016

All photos of the book’s plates  © Jaime Rojo

Shepard Fairey / OBEY Earth Crisis published by Editions Albin Michel. Paris, France. July 2016.

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