Awesome Poster Art for THEY LIVE - By 'Obey' Artist Shepard Fairey
Street artist Shepard Fairey created this fantastic poster for the classic John Carpenter film They Live. The poster was created for Alamo Drafthouse and Mondo Tees for a special screening of the film on Thursday. For those of you who don't know Fairey is the artist that created the iconic Andre the Giant "Obey" image which he incorporated in the poster. He also created the famous Obama "Hope" poster. He also appeared in the documentary Exit Through the Gift Shop. His iconic "Obey" art was actually inspired by this film, and a few years ago he explained the connection saying,
The This is Your God show in 2003 at the Six Space gallery in downtown L.A. was an opportunity to showcase the sociopolitical message of the Obey campaign by paying homage to John Carpenter’s They Live, which was a major source of inspiration and the basis for my use of the word “obey.” The movie has a very strong message about the power of commercialism and the way that people are manipulated by advertising. One of my main concepts with the show (and the campaign as a whole) was that obedience is the most valuable currency. People rarely consider how much power they sacrifice by blindly following a self-serving corporation’s marketing agenda, and how their spending habits reflect the direction in which they choose to transfer power. In They Live, the protagonist discovers hidden messages lurking behind billboards and anything commercial, and the money says “THIS IS YOUR GOD” on plain white paper. I designed a graphic that looked somewhat like real money but with that slogan, which we used for the invitations and a billboard I rented on the corner of Sunset and Hollywood to promote the show.
I absolutley love this poster, but like every poster I try to get from Mondo they are always sold out before I can order one. Do you like the poster?
Prints of the poster above will go on sale to the attendees of Thursday’s film screening and the prints that are left over go on sale this Friday June 10 at a random time by following @MondoNews. If you get one of the 500 limited edition prints it will cost you $50.