Shepard Fairey

Photo courtesy Jonathan Levine Gallery

Shepard Fairey, "Guns and Roses"

Courtesy Jonathan Levine Gallery

Shepard Fairey, "War for Sale"

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I was really afraid of being didactic at first because I didn't necessarily think that I knew all the solutions, but then during the 2004 election, I realized that people who probably knew less than I did were running the country. So I was like, "Fuck it, I might as well."

Is there any contradiction with the fact that you've also always done commercial work?

For a long time, I couldn't make a living just from art, so commercial work was the way that I paid the bills—and honed my skills.

Do art dealers sometimes feel that your commercial work dilutes the value of your one-off or small-edition pieces?

I think the galleries that I choose to work with understand where I'm coming from. When I was younger, T-shirts from punk bands and skateboard companies influenced my aesthetic more than anything going on in the art world. For me, it was always about getting people to care about art and graphics and politics, and the power of communication in general. That is not going to happen with gallery shows geared for people who already feel qualified to go look at, evaluate, and interpret art.

That's why Keith Haring went to Central Park and gave away lithos of his paintings that were selling for $15,000, and Tony Shafrazi was so bummed out. Some people say, "Well, that waters down your fine art." My reply is always: "Actually, I broke into the fine art world—crashed in sideways or whatever—because I started with T-shirts and posters." Bypassing all that would completely undermine my project.

Is that why it's important that you keep making work for the street?

I think it's important to completely shred the notion that you cannot be critiquing and participating in the system simultaneously. There's this idea that your ideals have been corrupted and you've been absorbed by the evil system just because you're dealing with it. To me, this insults people's intelligence.

Look at Banksy. He's a great illustration of where I'm coming from. I've been friends with him for eight years, and recently his work has escalated in value exponentially. Damien Hirst took him under his wing and helped re-present him in the art-world context, but Banksy's paintings still have a simple methodology that resonates with pretty much everybody, and it's free when you see it on the street.

Damien Hirst, on the other hand, just made a skull encrusted with diamonds. It's like $100 million, and it's dipped in platinum or whatever. It's impressive, but it's millions of dollars worth of material for what I think is a two-cent idea. I think Banksy's stuff is million-dollar ideas made with two-cents worth of material.