I like to say when things get weird, the weird go pro. I’m not talking Obama here. What I’m referring to is the under-the-radar fact that Time’s Man of the Year cover image is made by a punk-skater-guerrilla artist by the name of Shepard Fairey, the man who plastered America with Andre the Giant for the past 20 years or so. To learn more about how the poster and cover were conceived, I highly recommend viewing Time Magazine’s little video about the cover art (they don’t have an embed option, so I posted a CBS news piece above), featuring Fairey talking about guerrilla media and memes. Kinda weird to see such ideas boasted about at Time…Time “Henry Luce” Magazine, that is. I hope someone out there gets the historical significance of this.
Michael Shaw, however, who blogs at BagNewsNotes, had a less-than appreciative take on the cover:
Besides TIME’s own Obama-envy and the blatant play to a younger demographic, the illustration, as much as anything, seems to telegraph Fairey’s own desire to cash in on the original artwork — another reason for the poster-within-the-poster on Obama’s collar just under his chin, not to mention the enormous dollar sign.
Based on Fairy’s description of his own process in the Time Magazine video linked above, I think Shaw is misreading the image. But me being an Gen Xer, I feel a need to defend a fellow tribester. Also, I’m a sucker for poster art, and this is as iconic as they get.
“Weird heroes and mold-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of “the rat race” is not yet final.” Hunter S. Thompson — who also said that the weird turn pro.