Andre the Giant Has a Posse is a
street art
Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art.
Street art has evolved from the early forms of defiant graff ...
campaign based on a
design
A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...
by
Shepard Fairey
Frank Shepard Fairey (born February 15, 1970) is an American contemporary artist, activist and founder of OBEY Clothing who emerged from the skateboarding scene. In 1989 he designed the " Andre the Giant Has a Posse" (...OBEY...) sticker cam ...
created in 1989 while Shepard attended the Rhode Island School of Design in
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...
. Distributed by the
skater
Skater may refer to:
Sports
*Someone who practices skateboarding
*Someone who practices roller skating
*Someone who practices inline skating
* Someone who practices ice skating
*An ice hockey player who is not a goaltender
*Skater (subculture), ...
community and graffiti artists, the stickers featuring an image of
André the Giant
André René Roussimoff (; 19 May 1946 – 28 January 1993), better known by his ring name André the Giant, was a French professional wrestler and actor. Roussimoff was known for his great size, which was a result of gigantism caused by exce ...
began showing up in many cities across the United States. At the time, Fairey declared the campaign to be "an experiment in
phenomenology
Phenomenology may refer to:
Art
* Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties
Philosophy
* Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...
". Over time, the artwork has been reused in a number of ways and has become worldwide. Fairey also altered the work stylistically and semantically into OBEY Giant.
[Shepard Fairey, "Supply & Demand: The Art of Shepard Fairey", pg. 35.]
History
![2008-0602-SF-Obeyclothing](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/2008-0602-SF-Obeyclothing.jpg)
Fairey and fellow
Rhode Island School of Design
The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...
student
Ryan Lesser
Ryan Lesser is an American video game and board game designer, musician and graphic artist living in Providence, Rhode Island. A graduate of Rhode Island School of Design, he is best known for his design and art direction on influential video ga ...
, along with Blaize Blouin, Alfred Hawkins and Mike Mongo created paper and vinyl stickers and posters with an
image
An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...
of the
wrestler
Wrestling is a series of combat sports involving grappling-type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. Wrestling techniques have been incorporated into martial arts, combat sport ...
André the Giant
André René Roussimoff (; 19 May 1946 – 28 January 1993), better known by his ring name André the Giant, was a French professional wrestler and actor. Roussimoff was known for his great size, which was a result of gigantism caused by exce ...
and the text "ANDRE THE GIANT HAS A POSSE 7' 4", 520 lb", ("7'4", 520 lbs"—2.24 m, 236 kg—famously being Andre the Giant's billed height and weight) as an
in-joke
An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or a private joke, is a joke whose humour is understandable only to members of an ingroup; that is, people who are ''in'' a particular social group, occupation, or other community of shared interest. It i ...
directed at
hip hop and
skater
Skater may refer to:
Sports
*Someone who practices skateboarding
*Someone who practices roller skating
*Someone who practices inline skating
* Someone who practices ice skating
*An ice hockey player who is not a goaltender
*Skater (subculture), ...
subculture
A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, poli ...
, and then began clandestinely and aggressively propagating and posting them in
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...
, and over the rest of the
Eastern United States
The Eastern United States, commonly referred to as the American East, Eastern America, or simply the East, is the region of the United States to the east of the Mississippi River. In some cases the term may refer to a smaller area or the East C ...
.
In an interview with ''Format'' magazine in 2008, Fairey said: "The Andre the Giant sticker was just a spontaneous, happy accident. I was teaching a friend how to make stencils in the summer of 1989, and I looked for a picture to use in the newspaper, and there just happened to be an ad for wrestling with André the Giant and I told him that he should make a stencil of it. He said 'Nah, I’m not making a stencil of that, that’s stupid!' but I thought it was funny so I made the stencil and I made a few stickers and the group of guys I was hanging out with always called each other The Posse, so it said Andre the Giant Has a Posse, and it was sort of appropriated from hip-hop slang –
Public Enemy
"Public enemy" is a term which was first widely used in the United States in the 1930s to describe individuals whose activities were seen as criminal and extremely damaging to society, though the phrase had been used for centuries to describe p ...
,
N.W.A
N.W.A (an abbreviation for Niggaz Wit Attitudes) was an American hip hop group whose members were among the earliest and most significant popularizers and controversial figures of the gangsta rap subgenre, and the group is widely considered ...
and
Ice-T were all using the word."
By the early 1990s, tens of thousands of paper and then
vinyl
Vinyl may refer to:
Chemistry
* Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer
* Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation
* Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry
* Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl m ...
stickers were
photocopied
A photocopier (also called copier or copy machine, and formerly Xerox machine, the generic trademark) is a machine that makes copies of documents and other visual images onto paper or plastic film quickly and cheaply. Most modern photocopiers u ...
and hand-
silkscreen
Screen printing is a printing technique where a mesh is used to transfer ink (or dye) onto a substrate, except in areas made impermeable to the ink by a blocking stencil. A blade or squeegee is moved across the screen to fill the open mesh ...
ed and put in visible places throughout the world.
"Andre the Giant Has a Posse" is also the title of a 1995 documentary short by
Helen Stickler
Helen Stickler (born 1968) is an American designer and filmmaker, who wrote, directed and produced '' Stoked: The Rise and Fall of Gator'' (2003) and '' Andre the Giant Has a Posse'' (1995). In 2019, she helped to found a progressive news aggregato ...
, which was the first documentary to feature Shepard Fairey and chronicle his influential street art campaign. The film screened worldwide, most notably in the 1997
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...
. In 2003, Village Voice film critic
Ed Halter
Ed Halter is a film programmer, writer, and founder of Light Industry, a microcinema in Brooklyn, New York. He currently teaches at Bard College, where he is Critic in Residence.
Criticism
His writing has been featured in ''Artforum'', '' The ...
described the film as: "legendary" and "a canonical study of a Gen-X media manipulation. One of the keenest examinations of '90s underground culture".
The threat of a lawsuit from
Titan Sports, Inc. in 1994 spurred Fairey to stop using the trademarked name André the Giant, and to create a more iconic image of the wrestler's face, now most often with the equally iconic branding OBEY. The "OBEY" slogan was not only a parody of propaganda, but also a direct homage to the "OBEY" signs found in the
cult film
A cult film or cult movie, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a cult following. Cult films are known for their dedicated, passionate fanbase which forms an elaborate subculture, members of which engage ...
, ''
They Live
''They Live'' is a 1988 American science fiction action horror film written and directed by John Carpenter, based on the 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson. Starring Roddy Piper, Keith David, and Meg Foster, the film ...
'' (1988), starring
Roddy Piper
Roderick George Toombs (April 17, 1954 – July 31, 2015), better known as "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, was a Canadian professional wrestler, amateur wrestler, and actor.
In professional wrestling, Piper was best known to international audiences for hi ...
. About "OBEY", ''
San Diego Union-Tribune
''The San Diego Union-Tribune'' is a metropolitan daily newspaper published in San Diego, California, that has run since 1868.
Its name derives from a 1992 merger between the two major daily newspapers at the time, ''The San Diego Union'' and ...
'' art critic Robert L. Pincus said: "
airey's workwas a reaction against earlier political art, since it delivered no clear message. Still, 'Obey' was suggestively antiauthoritarian." "Following the example set by gallery art, some street art is more about the concept than the art," writes ''
The Walrus
''The Walrus'' is an independent, non-profit Canadian media organization. It is multi-platform and produces an 8-issue-per-year magazine and online editorial content that includes current affairs, fiction, poetry, and podcasts, a national s ...
'' contributor Nick Mount. "'Fuck Bush' isn’t an aesthetic; it’s an ethic. Shepard Fairey’s Obey Giant stickers and
Akay's Akayism posters are clever children of
Duchamp
Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...
, ironic conceptual art."
Appropriation and fair use
Fairey has come under criticism for appropriating others' artwork. Graphic designer Baxter Orr did his own take on Fairey's work: a piece called Protect, with the iconic Obey Giant face covered by a SARS (respiratory) mask. He started selling prints, marked as his own work, through his website. On April 23, 2008, Orr received a signed cease-and-desist order from Fairey's attorneys, telling him to pull Protect from sale because they alleged it violated Fairey's trademark. Fairey threatened to sue, calling the designer a "bottom feeder" and "parasite".
[Artist Cage Match: Fairey vs. Orr]
Richard Whittaker, ''The Austin Chronicle
''The Austin Chronicle'' is an alternative weekly newspaper published every Thursday in Austin, Texas, United States. The paper is distributed through free news-stands, often at local eateries or coffee houses frequented by its targeted demogr ...
'', May 13, 2008.
Parodies
The original "Andre the Giant Has a Posse" sticker format has been widely imitated for humorous effect over many years. In these
parody
A parody, also known as a spoof, a satire, a send-up, a take-off, a lampoon, a play on (something), or a caricature, is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satiric or ironic imitation. Often its subj ...
stickers, the image of André the Giant has been replaced with a similarly stylized black-and-white photo of some other person or character, along with the new figure's height and weight.
For example, the parody sticker "Tattoo the Midget Has a Bigger Posse" features the image of
Hervé Villechaize
Hervé Jean-Pierre Villechaize (; April 23, 1943 – September 4, 1993) was a French actor and painter. He is best known for his role as the evil henchman Nick Nack in the 1974 James Bond film '' The Man with the Golden Gun'', and his role as Mr ...
portraying the character Tattoo from ''
Fantasy Island
''Fantasy Island'' is an American fantasy drama television series created by Gene Levitt. It aired on ABC from 1977 to 1984. The series starred Ricardo Montalbán as the mysterious Mr. Roarke and Hervé Villechaize as his assistant, Tattoo. Gu ...
''. Colin Purrington's "
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...
Has a Posse" stickers, featuring a black-and-white photo of Charles Darwin, promote the theory of evolution.
During the
2000 presidential campaign in the United States, "
Ralph Nader
Ralph Nader (; born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes.
The son of Lebanese immigrants to the Un ...
Has a Posse" showed up on college campuses. Numerous other parody stickers can be found featuring different popular culture figures, including the ''
Homestar Runner
''Homestar Runner'' is an American Flash animated comedy web series and website created by Mike and Matt Chapman, known collectively as The Brothers Chaps. The series centers on the adventures of a large and diverse cast of characters, headed by ...
'' character
Strong Mad
This article is a list of fictional characters in the Flash web cartoon series ''Homestar Runner'' and episodic video game ''Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People''.
Homestar Runner
Homestar Runner is the title character of the series. A ...
.
Another parody of the "Obey" poster has an image of
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading Transcendentalism, transcendentalist, he is best known for his book ''Walden'', a reflection upon simple living in natural su ...
and reads "Disobey" in reference to his essay ''
Civil Disobedience
Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". Hen ...
''.''
These parody stickers are a further extension of the original "joke", and thus are most likely to be found in locations where the original André the Giant iconography is already familiar, such as
SoHo
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster, part of the West End of London. Originally a fashionable district for the aristocracy, it has been one of the main entertainment districts in the capital since the 19th century.
The area was develop ...
,
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
, or
South Street,
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...
. An unusual occurrence of a parody sticker was at the particle physics laboratory
Fermilab
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. Since 2007, Fermilab has been operat ...
where the director of the lab, Pier Oddone, was the subject of the sticker.
Tenacious D
Tenacious D is an American comedy rock duo formed in Los Angeles, California in 1994. It was founded by actors Jack Black and Kyle Gass, who were members of The Actors' Gang theater company at the time. The duo's name is derived from "tenacio ...
produced stickers with the slogan "Obey the D" and stylized images of their members, Jack Black and Kyle Gass, over their initials.
Guitar Hero II
''Guitar Hero II'' is a music rhythm video game developed by Harmonix and published by RedOctane for the PlayStation 2 and Activision for the Xbox 360. It is the second main installment in the ''Guitar Hero'' series and is the sequel to 2005's ...
features a "Vlad Has a Posse" sticker on various loading screens throughout the game.
Electronic Frontier Foundation
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...
created a sticker with the words "Fair Use Has a Posse" on it. "
Joey Deacon
Joseph John Deacon (24 May 1920 – 3 December 1981) was a British author and television personality.
Biography
Deacon was born with severe cerebral palsy, a neurological condition that left him with neuromuscular spasticity that particul ...
Has a Posse" parody stencils have appeared in the United Kingdom.
"Jack Has a Posse" stickers have appeared in the
Gaslamp Quarter
The Gaslamp Quarter is a 16½-block neighborhood in the downtown area of San Diego, California. It extends from Broadway to Harbor Drive, and from 4th to 6th Avenue.
Listed as a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places as ...
of
San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...
,
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
, in July 2011 during the
Esri International User Conference held at the nearby
San Diego Convention Center
The San Diego Convention Center is the primary convention center in San Diego, California. It is located in the Marina district of downtown San Diego near the Gaslamp Quarter, at 111 West Harbor Drive. The center is managed by the San Diego Con ...
. The stickers carry an image of US businessman
Jack Dangermond
Jack Dangermond (born 1945) is an American billionaire businessman and environmental scientist, who co-founded, with Laura Dangermond, in 1969 the Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri), a privately held geographic information systems ( ...
, founder of
Esri
Esri (; Environmental Systems Research Institute) is an American multinational geographic information system (GIS) software company. It is best known for its ArcGIS products. With a 43% market share, Esri is the world's leading supplier of GIS ...
.
ThinkGeek
ThinkGeek was an American retailer that catered to computer enthusiasts and "geek culture". Described as a "Sharper Image for sysadmins", their merchandise has been likened to "toys for adults, novelties designed to appeal to both your inner child ...
produced a T-shirt with the slogan "Fezzik Has a Posse" in March 2012, in reference to André the Giant's role as Fezzik in the movie ''
The Princess Bride The Princess Bride may refer to:
* ''The Princess Bride'' (novel), 1973 fantasy romance novel by American writer William Goldman
William Goldman (August 12, 1931 – November 16, 2018) was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He ...
'' (1987) and the "Andre the Giant Has a Posse" street art campaign.
In 2014, WWE wrestler
Daniel Bryan started wearing a T-shirt with a stylized image of himself with a "YES" slogan at the bottom.
Also in 2014, a rash of "
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley (; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the pro ...
has a Posse" stickers appeared around New York City and Chicago.
New York Mets
The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. They are one of two major league ...
pitcher
Bartolo Colón
Bartolo Colón (born May 24, 1973), nicknamed "Big Sexy," is a Dominican-American professional baseball pitcher. He has played for 11 different Major League Baseball (MLB) teams: the Cleveland Indians (1997–2002), Montreal Expos (2002), Chicago ...
has also been the subject of a line of parody stickers spread around the country in 2016.
The cover of the April 2017
issue of
Harper's Magazine
''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...
features a photo of a protester with a sign parodying the "Obey" poster with a stylized portrait of President Donald Trump and the slogan "Disobey".
The hacker community has embraced the meme with a black and white image of
Grace Hopper
Grace Brewster Hopper (; December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and United States Navy Rear admiral (United States), rear admiral. One of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I, Harvard Mar ...
with the words "Grace Hopper HAS A POSSE".
See also
*
Guerrillero Heroico
''Guerrillero Heroico'' ( en, "Heroic Guerrilla Fighter") is an iconic photograph of Marxism, Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara taken by Alberto Korda. It was captured on March 5, 1960, in Havana, Cuba, at a memorial service for victims of the ...
*
Culture jamming
Culture jamming (sometimes also guerrilla communication) is a form of protest used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert media culture and its mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. It atte ...
*
Graffiti
Graffiti (plural; singular ''graffiti'' or ''graffito'', the latter rarely used except in archeology) is art that is written, painted or drawn on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from s ...
*
Pop art
*
Schwa (art)
Schwa is the underground conceptual artwork of Bill Barker (born 1957). Barker draws deceptively simple black and white stick figures and oblong alien ships. However the artwork is not about the aliens: it is about how people react to the prese ...
*
Sticker art
Sticker art (also known as sticker bombing, sticker slapping, slap tagging, and sticker tagging) is a form of street art in which an image or message is publicly displayed using stickers. These stickers may promote a political agenda, comment o ...
*
Obey (clothing)
References
Further reading
* ''E Pluribus Venom'' by Shepard Fairey (2008) Gingko Press.
* ''Philosophy of Obey (Obey Giant): The Formative Years (1989 - 2008)'', edited by Sarah Jaye Williams (2008), Nerve Books UK.
* ''Obey: Supply & Demand, The Art of Shepard Fairey'' by Shepard Fairey (2006), Gingko Press.
*
External links
Official Obey Giant WebsiteTheGiant.Org - The Definitive Obey Giant SiteSalon Interview with Shepard FaireyFilmed Interview with Shepard Fairey (Obey)
{{André the Giant
Culture jamming
Graffiti and unauthorised signage
Stickers
Works by Shepard Fairey
André the Giant
da:OBEY