Of course the corporate media moguls are going to keep the spotlight on the Tea Party movement; the more they reinforce the meme that government is the one taking liberty, not protecting it, then that much less attention can be paid to the real issue - the consolidated corporate giants that control the mass market of consumer goods directed at the middle class that so many of these ‘activists’ are freaked out about losing. Don Monkerud writes for Counterpunch, Tea Partiers Should Be Picketing the Corporations That Dominate Our Lives:

Tom Tomorrow

“Those who control our corporations managed an Orwellian achievement to redefine the use of brute corporate force as ‘market forces,’” says Lynn. “We still believe in a consumer utopia, but we have an illusion of choice. Corporate powers manipulate our decision-making and direct us to buy certain goods at certain prices.”

Institutional power shifted to Wall Street and large financial institutions. Today a small elite runs corporations to serve themselves as they concentrate their power. Some Americans are waking up to the reality of their situation, but Congress lacks the will to regulate corporate power.

…Although some Americans worry about the growing power of the government, few understand the real power that controls their everyday lives.

Private monopolies determine the brand of breakfast cereal we eat, the type of car we drive, where we bank, the medical treatment we receive, the fashion of our clothes, and the kind of toothbrush we use, in addition to the beer we drink, the health insurance we buy, and what we feed our pets.

…”People say we have an uncontrolled free market but we have the opposite,” says Barry C. Lynn, senior fellow at the New American Foundation. “What we have today is a laissez faire American version of feudalism; a private government in the form of private corporations run by private individuals who consolidated power to govern entire activities within our political economy.”

…

According to Gawker, he can dish it but he can’t take it:

from Gawker.com

Shepard Fairey is America’s darling, ever since that Obama ‘HOPE’ poster. The AP looked like jerks when they complained about him stealing their photo. But! Fairey will sue your ass for stealing his brand, quick.

See, if you try to sell anything featuring the word “Obey” you are totally stealing from Shepard Fairey, and he will instruct his attorneys to send you a threatening cease and desist letter, because he keeps shit real like that. Some guy in Pittsburgh sells little baby Steeler mascots with the phrase “Obey Steeler Baby.” Shepard Fairey demands that he stop infringing on his trademark, which he originally made famous by ripping off the image of Andre the Giant!

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Fairey is involved in a high profile legal dispute with the Associated Press over the source photo of his iconic, ubiquitous Obama campaign poster.

And let me state for the record - because I know I’m about to incur the ‘you just don’t get contemporary art’ disdain - that in this specific instance of the Obama poster I side with Fairey’s argument that the photo was sufficiently altered to be considered artistic fair use.It is Shepard Fairey’s previous legal battles with copyright/plagiarism issues that are far more juicy, and his recent meteoric rise to fame in conjunction with the Obama poster has reignited this controversy.

example of Fairey's appropriation taken from Vallen's art-for-a-change.com expose

I know full well that the last thing I’m able to do is resolve the complicated questions of how copying interfaces with the art world, so I’m going to include excerpts and links from some of the more notable commentary and let you be the judge:

Let’s start with Rachel Maddow, who scored and next-to-impossible-to-get interview with Fairey last night. I was a little disappointed, however, that she failed challenge Fairey in any way. Was this her own proclaimed admiration of his Obey years or an agreement with Fairey that was a condition of getting the interview? Because I find it hard to believe that Maddow of all people did not do her research.

The Fairey critique that’s inspired the most ‘you don’t get contemporary art’ criticism is the exhaustive and biting article by Mark Vallen filled with side by side photos of Fairey’s work and their uncredited sources.

Plagiarism is the deliberate passing off of someone else’s work as your own, and Shepard Fairey may be unfamiliar with the term - but not the act. This article is not about the innocent absorption of visual ideas that later materialize unconsciously in an artist’s work, we do after all live in a maelstrom of images and we can’t help but be affected by them. Nor am I referring to an artist’s direct influences - which artist can claim not to have been inspired by techniques or styles employed by others? What I am concerned with is the brazen, intentional copying of already existing artworks created by others - sometimes duplicating the originals without alteration - and then deceiving people by pawning off the counterfeit works as original creations.

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While many luxury retailers are taking their marketing under the radar, appealing to stealth wealth and discreet luxury, Saks Fifth Avenue is taking a bold move in the opposite direction.

Saks Fifth Avenue shopping bags. Image from NYTimes.com

Their Spring 2009 ad campaign cops a graphically bold stance of shopping with an aesthetic of defiance lifted directly from none other than… the icons of communist propaganda. Whether it makes you cringe, gag or crack and ironic smile, such an open embrace of socialist chic as a ploy to stimulate carefree consumerism is a sure reverberation of the hairpin turn in the zeitgeist. Eric Wilson writes for the NY Times: Consumers of the World Unite

SHOPPING, these days, is a political act. If you are brave enough to buy a $2,000 Prada handbag, you might rationalize that you are helping to stimulate the economy. Solidarity, people!

Saks Fifth Avenue, which has surely felt the recession’s sting, is taking just such a fist-raising stand with its spring marketing. The campaign is inspired by the bold graphic designs and propaganda spirit of Constructivist art — although it is intended to be tongue-in-cheek.

Saks Fifth Avenue ad. Image from NYTimes.com

So is Alexander Rodchenko (the constructivist artist who’s work ‘inspired’ the Saks campaign) rolling in his grave? Not necessarily. I emailed the Times article to my friend who’s actually read Karl Marx, and here’s what he had to say:

But when you view it ala Marx, it makes perfect sense. To him, all art is propaganda. And propaganda is simply anything that promotes a point of view. The Soviets were using their
propaganda to promote nationalism; marketers are using the same images to promote
consumerism, by simply making small changes (prettier models, having the lines move
towards products). It’s still a “Join our bandwagon” message.

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I was digging around on Douglas Rushkoff’s website when I stumbled upon the article excerpted below (well worth reading in it’s entirety). It is the most eloquent and concise chronology of marketers attempts to co-opt anti-corporate rebellion.

I’ve been a huge fan of Rushkoff ever since I saw his Frontline documentaries, The Merchants of Cool (how corporations hire cool hunters to co-opt youth culture and sell it back to them) and The Persuaders (behind the scenes study of the tactics that very highly paid marketing gurus use to find out how to trigger our reptilian brains into wanting what they have to sell). For anyone curious about the intersection of trends, advertising and corporations, this is essential viewing.

page from Sportswear International Magazine

Here he writes for Sportswear International, an industry magazine focused on the premium youth denim and casual markets. So keep in mind that he’s addressing the very designers and marketers trying to capture the imaginations of this demographic. From The Pursuit of Cool: Introduction to Anti-Hyper-Consumerism:

Writing this little piece could get me in a whole lot of trouble. See, most of my books and articles are about combating the very same marketing techniques you hope to learn by subscribing to a magazine like this one. My usual readers are the kids who buy Adbusters magazine, the activists who protest at the WTO, and parents looking for ways to bring meaning into their children’s lives that don’t involve a new brand of sneaker. If they even suspect me of selling you clues about how teens think and live in order for you to market fashions to them more effectively, I’m done for.

Yes, friends, there’s a war going on and, as far as America’s youth culture is concerned, you are the enemy.

Yes, they are the enemy. Notice how he frames the battle between the anti-corporate, anti-consumerist resistance and the marketers trying to co-opt that rebellion? He says to the coolhunters:

But you were fighting a losing battle. The minute a cool trend is discovered, repackaged, and sold to kids at the mall, it’s no longer cool….They knew that their own claim to a trend is challenged by its adoption into the mainstream, so they looked for ways to hide from your researchers’ hunting scopes.

By the early 90’s, the so-called Generation X believed they had found their defense against you: adopt a posture and lifestyle that resists the notion of cool itself. These self-proclaimed slackers followed Bart Simpson’s lead, and treated every marketing message with good dose of protective irony. They refused to be intimidated into buying the latest styles of jeans or running shoes, opting instead for the ugliest clothes they could find at the local thrift shop. Grunge style, like grunge music, was a revolt against marketing itself.

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